Marchwarden: Son of Guilin
by kenazfiction
Summary: "The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire." - William R Alger I first posed this story to LJ, Henneth-Annun, and various Yahoo!Groups in 2005. It is being posted here in its original form. Please feel free to address me with any questions about the originality of these stories; I am happy to provide timestamped evidence of its original posting dates.
1. Chapter 1

**Lothlorien, Second Age, 3430**

"You would let them go? You would take our children to die at the call of some kin-slayer who has never deigned set foot in this realm?"

Faelas' fraught voice strained with desperation as she paced, eyes brimming with angry tears. The shadow had grown, and the fell machinations of that darkness now found her husband offering up her sons to war. To watch them march to their doom in a barren land was not a fate to which she would readily submit.

"Gil-Galad is no kin-slayer. He is the High King."

"High King of the Noldor, not of us!"

No, he was not their king. But Amdir was, and should he commit to this alliance, the Galadhrim would march with him. Great was the threat, and no longer could the Silvans of Lorien and Greenwood the Great maintain their insularity. The elves were going to war.

Faelas wrapped her arms around her husband's waist, feeling his strong embrace envelop her. _Few and fleeting these moments have ever been_, she mused, _that the soldier disarms so the husband might hold me. He smelled of pine needles and wet earth._

"I lost my brothers in Doriath, and I sang for them though I thought my heart would break," she whispered into the rough, grey wool of his tunic. "Would you ask me to lead your lament when you fall? Would you have me sing those bitter songs of our sons? I could not do it. I will not." She pulled her head away that she might meet and hold his eyes. "Mothers should not mourn their children, Guilin. It is not the way of things."

"They are children no more," he countered, though his resolve wavered under her despondent gaze. "They are soldiers. Long have they trained for this purpose."

"Scant years have passed since they have reached full stature, Guilin!" She collected herself, despising the shrillness in her voice. Softer, she implored, "Please...Let us go...let us leave this place. Long have I felt the call of the gulls pulling at my breast... Let us sail, dear one, all of us. Have no more of war."

Guilin stood mute at his wife's appeal. So delicate the arms she flung around him, nearly insubstantial. She quaked beneath his fingers, her hair soft as silk beneath their calloused tips. Could she fathom in her gentleness that he chose his path not to fight, but to protect? He could not leave Arda, not now. As long as the Black Hand threatened the Golden Wood, he would stay to repel it. He was a Marchwarden; this was his duty.

Her voice faltered, choked with the tears now issuing freely forth. "You choose duty over love! You take our sons knowing that they may not return... that you may not return. Know when you go forth that the loss of any one of you will be my end."

She abruptly pulled away from her husband's embrace and fled the room, the warmth of his arms an aching reminder of all she stood to lose.

* * *

**Lothlorien, Second Age, 3430**

The call had been raised; on the morrow, they would march.

Elemmakil's armor lay arrayed on his bed, polished and glowing in the late afternoon light.

_To what end? That I may present a statelier corpse?_

He tempered his bitterness, for he well knew the reason he donned the fulgent plates. What rouses a company more than to see its leaders shining and glorious before them? Why else were standards flown, when there was nothing more useless on a field of battle than a pretty banner?

_Before the filth of war takes hold_, he considered, _victory is clad in shining mail and illumined helms, and men don their courage as they don their hauberks. Later, they will find that victory wears a tattered uniform fouled with gore. But not yet; now they need only know the glare of sun reflected from an unblemished cuirass._

From a casket in his wardrobe, he retrieved a silver coin bearing a magnificent fountain on its face, the only object he possessed to tie him to his darkest days. He tucked it in his vambrace, tightening the buckle till it bit his skin.

_I have memories enough, what need have I for souvenirs?_

But the coin was a touchstone, the last tangible connection to the one he loved above all others, the one who was farthest from his reach.

_I carry it now for luck, yet there was no luck to be found on that day._

Unless he counted escaping with his life as luck. Sometimes he did.

* * *

**The Dagorlad, Second Age, 3434**

_For good or ill, here is where it ends._

Approaching the Black Gate, those who gathered on the wide and dusty plain knew they stood not only on the threshold of Sauron's door, but on the very edge of the world. A false step here, and down they would all fall into an abyss unfathomable, the end of all things.

Guilin waited, his red cloak pushed back from his shoulders, and his curved blade glinting with blood-hunger. He cast a hard look in either direction: To the West, his king and his swordsmen, flanked by the House of Oropher. To the East, the Noldo king, Aeglos in hand, poised for a lethal thrust. Beyond him, Elendil and his army of men. In either direction, the line of men and elves extended far across the barren soil.

Ahead, the line of the enemy stretched just as long.

He did not spare a look behind him, though he yearned to crane his neck for one last glimpse of his sons. The ranks of archers were thick, and Elemmakil had promised to keep them as far back as he could without others claiming partiality- was not every child as valuable to his father as Guilin's sons were to him? Would that he could have kept them from this altogether.

_'You choose duty over love!'_

His wife's embittered accusation echoed within him. Wherefore these ideals forever set in opposition?

His sons were skilled fighters now, the continuous sorties of the last four years allowing ample opportunity to hone every skill. Though warriors now in truth, he feared for them no less, feared for them far more than he ever had for his own life. His thoughts lit on his third child and his wife, sheltered in the mellyrn of Lorien. There was hope.

Time seemed suspended as both sides waited to engage, and his mind slipped back through centuries to envision his sons in their youth. When he was called to arms, his eldest would solemnly slip Guilin's cloak about his shoulders, fastening the silver pin with a furrowed brow while his middle son fetched his sword, straining under its weight. The youngest, a mere babe, regarded the trio with wide-eyed curiosity. Gathering them in his arms he had kissed each one in turn, telling them, "I will come back to you, young ones, for I do not willingly part from you."

He had done the same this morning, although his second son no longer struggled with the sword; he could wield it almost as skillfully as Guilin now.

With no forewarning, all turned to confusion.

A battle cry split the thick air and a contingent from Greenwood flooded forward, King Oropher at their head, a golden swarm racing toward the Morannon. Guilin felt his own ranks lurching, unsure whether to follow or hold the line.

The Noldo King's face twisted into a mask of rage and disbelief. He had not issued the order to advance. Through misguided spite or fury, Oropher led this doomed charge alone, and led it to his folly.

"_Tangado haid_!"

Gil-Galad's thunderous voice cut the air, commanding his elves to hold. Distantly, Guilin heard the King's Herald repeat the order.

One by one, they watched helplessly as Oropher's men fell. They fell to arrow, sword and fire. They fell with eyes open, but landed not on the battle plain. One by one, the brackish swill of the western marshes claimed them, their unseeing eyes glowing like candles in the murk. In death, they were held in thrall. The marshes filled quickly with the dead.

Amdir saw little choice now; the enemy advanced and any advantage they might have gained through a consolidated assault was lost. They would follow Oropher's lead, and hope then Gil-Galad would bring his numbers to their aid. Guilin gave the swordsmen his signal. It had begun.

He gripped his weapon, reckoning its familiar heft and balance. The black host moved. Behind him, he heard the order to release arrows, and the opening salvo took flight over his head. He prayed his sons' bolts would find their targets. He prayed no enemy would find his sons.

He prayed.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Dagorlad, Second Age, 3434**

Galion swabbed sweat from his brow with his sleeve, his hands fouled with blood. Exhaustion crept over his bones like frost on a vine while the unrelenting flood of wounded and moribund into the healers' tents leached his dwindling reserves of energy and disheartened his spirit. Since the siege on the Black Gate had begun, he had set more broken bones, stitched more gaping wounds, and closed more lifeless eyes than he dared contemplate.

Across the arid plain, two archers stumbled toward him, bracing a third between them. They covered the distance quickly despite their encumbrance, and Galion sped to meet them. Dense and foul-smelling smoke belched from chthonic vents and ground fires, but even with his eyes half occluded, Galion well knew Haldir's form, and Taurnil's beside it. Orophin hung limply from their shoulders, blood sluicing from beneath his helm where mangled metal bit cruelly into his scalp.

The great range of Elven bows allowed the archers to keep to the rear of the formations, and for this they counted themselves fortunate. Yrch, though imbued with comparable strength, possessed more primitive weapons than their assailants, though their tainted bolts were every bit as deadly. The fortune of the archers had not held, however, the ranks shielding them growing thinner as men and elves fell to the enemy scourge.

The slashing blades of Eryn Galen and Lorien pushed forward, flanked by Gil-Galad's forces, armed as their king with long, vicious spears. Following the advancing companies, the Silvan archers drew closer to the Morannon. The adversary bade his time before letting loose a barrage from monstrous trebuchets concealed behind the ironclad walls. Orophin had been knocked from his feet as ballast crushed the men beside him. He had been, by Taurnil's account, only inches away from bearing the brunt of the assault himself.

"That will be little consolation when he wakes to find Vandilas and Otaróm dead," Haldir muttered, his face stricken.

Stiff metal proved a formidable opponent to Galion, who labored to dislodge the battered plate without inflicting further damage or pain. Orophin's cries diminished to low moans as he grew insensate, unconsciousness claiming him at last. Galion debated rousing him with smelling salts, for although the young archer was spared a cracked skull, the blow was hard enough to spur the healer's concern. Too often he had seen elves with deceptively minor injuries fall into a sleep from which they never awoke. But as Orophin's breathing was strong and even, the healer decided against it. The wound will be easier to tend, he reasoned, if he is not awake to feel it.

The archers could ill afford to tarry among the wounded, but Haldir was loath to leave his brother's side. Galion was not blind to the fear and uncertainty in his eyes. Disoriented by the chaos of battle and Orophin's injury, his usual mask of confidence had slipped; Galion ached for his friend.

"He's in good hands, Haldir." Taurnil's voice was ever familiar and reassuring, and Haldir nodded, turning once more to Galion with a face as grave as stone, recovering once again his look of certitude.

"If anything goes amiss with him, find me."

He touched his brother's cheeks and placed a kiss to the bloody brow, then sprinted back toward the lines with Taurnil close at his heels. Only Galion marked how the archer's hands had trembled.

* * *

For months the Alliance struggled, and for months they held. Finally, the tide turned: as the sun began its slow descent below the fire-blackened horizon, Gil-Galad and Elendil harried Mordor's armies. Heartened by the retreat of the enemy, they fought with renewed vigor. By nightfall, the Black Gate was breached and Sauron owned himself bested, fleeing to his stronghold in Barad-dûr. Those still able roared their triumph to the starless skies.

But the ultimate victory was not yet in hand. Sauron would regroup in haste from within his dark keep, and the losses to the Alliance had been devastating. The Silvans bore the brunt of the war dead: Oropher's elves had been all but decimated in their premature assault. Thranduil, with grief obscured by righteous anger, took up Greenwood's banner and vowed to fight on until the Master of Treachery had been brought to his knees. Lothlorien, too, lost its king, and Amroth wept bitterly for his beloved father even as he assumed his helm and sword.

Long into the night, Galion toured the field of battle, littered with unnumbered corpses of every race, scanning the parched land for any living ally mingled with the dead, though few were found. The dark plain held little life and ample death, the latter providing a grand feast for the swarming flies that descended to consume their spoils of war.

A mewling sound turned him to a ghastly sight: an elf impaled on his own spear, his legs swimming futilely in the dust. Hot bile rose in Galion's throat; this wound could not be healed. The soldier's face was a landscape of mottled grey interrupted only by the vibrant crimson trail issuing from his mouth.

He collected himself before kneeling at the warrior's side, forcing his face into a semblance of neutrality in spite of his utter horror. _His final vision,_ the healer counseled himself, _should not be the face of disgust._

"Please…"

The voice was barely audible, the breath coming in short, wheezing gasps; Galion was amazed to find he still drew breath at all. The smell of rot had already begun to rise from his punctured entrails, his listless, shaking hands clutching at the pike. Dark blood pooled thickly at his back.

"…Take it out…"

Galion reached into his pouch and his fingers found the one phial he had hoped never to use. Its amber broth promised swift mercy, but it was not a mercy he savored dispensing. Gentle hands pushed back strands of filth-clotted hair from the ashen face, and Galion felt a guilty tide of relief that this elf was a stranger to him.

"Drink this. It will dull the pain, and then I will pull it out."

The elf regarded him with clouded eyes, and Galion knew that though his vision diminished with each failing breath, he saw the bitter truth behind the honeyed words. Death was upon him, and the draught Galion offered bought only swifter passage. He shut his eyes and gave a weak nod, the healer finding some measure of absolution in that his patient understood what it was he offered.

"I'm sorry 'tis bitter," he whispered, speaking as much of his succor as of the draught he proffered.

…_Your fate, my friend, is most bitter, indeed._

The elf grimaced as the vile liquid slipped down his throat. His eyes rolled again to Galion, face lost to some unknowable emotion. The healer cradled the warrior's head in his lap, stroking the clammy cheek and whispering fruitless words of comfort as the raspy breath slowed to a terminal hiss and the twitching legs ceased their dance.

It took more strength than Galion anticipated to dislodge the spear. The Noldo's body rose from the ground as he pulled it, but he refused to suffer this soldier the indignity of having a foot planted on his chest for leverage. Finally freed, Galion laid the weapon in the cold hands of its wielder, closed the elf's blank, staring eyes, and turned away.

The only other survivor to be found was a man of the Numenor with shattered legs whom Galion helped convey, screaming in agony, back to the camp. Haldir awaited him there anxiously, seeking word of his brother. There was little to tell: Orophin stirred intermittently but fell quickly back into impregnable slumber, thus there was nought to do but wait. Haldir squatted next to the cot, gingerly holding an unresponsive hand.

It was Taurnil who first beheld Elemmakil slowly crossing the Dagorlad, cradling a lifeless body. He surreptitiously nudged the healer, eyes wide with dismay, and Galion reckoned at once the elf he carried. Haldir, engrossed with his brother's still form, did not look up until the Marchwarden stood nearly at their feet.

The anguished cry broke over them like a wave. With a howl of grief more animal than Elven, the eldest son of Guilin crumpled as Elemmakil returned bearing the body of his father in his arms.

Mercifully, Orophin did not wake, and was spared his own grief for a few hours more.


	3. Chapter 3

And we're wrapped inside our troubles  
And we're wrapped inside our pain  
And wracked with fires with longing  
And our eyes are blind with night  
With our fingers clutching coins  
And our thoughts burning with 'I'…  
-"A Sadness Song," Current 93

**Mordor, Second Age 3441**

So thick were the clouds of smoke and filth that not a single star shone in the sky. Would dawn even be discernable when it came?

_Perhaps_, Elemmakil brooded as he sank slowly to his cot, _dawn will not come at all_. He rolled over with a deflating hiss, every inch of his body aching with injury and exertion. The tent's peaked roof provided a focal point for his slack stare; even now, sleep eluded him.

He unbuckled his bracer and watched the silver coin tumble free, dropping with a clink against his hauberk. The faint impression of a fountain etched the pale skin of his wrist and he rubbed the mark gently, almost reverently.

_Should we ever defeat this evil and end this miserable war, perhaps Mandos will gift me with your return. Guerdon at last for the Marchwarden._

A bitter smile graced his cracked, bloodied lips as blistered fingers tried to massage the tension from his brow. He was grateful for the moment of solitude. For his men, he demonstrated stalwart fortitude, and incited them with his expressed faith in their ability to triumph. At his ease, with strength ebbing and hope on the wane, he presented a less intrepid display.

_They would take no inspiration from me now._

He brought the silver coin to his lips, its cool face a ludicrous substitute for the full, ripe mouth he could even now conjure in his mind.

_Ai, Ecthelion... You are most sorely missed._

* * *

A weak smile played across Taurnil's lips, espying the grey-clad figure curled sleeping in the corner of the healing tent. An elf needs be well and truly exhausted to find rest in this affray, he mused. For a moment, he simply observed his recumbent friend: umber hair framed a pale face that, in repose, bore none of the hard lines of centered concentration that often cleaved his brow. Grey eyes remained unfocused in their reverie. How young he looks in sleep, Taurnil marveled. It seemed cruel to wake him, but he would be needed soon enough.

"The host of light moves with the dawn, healer," he spoke in a low tone. "Best be at the ready."

The grey eyes seemed to light from within as they resumed their waking clarity. They climbed the long line of leg and body to the familiar grin bearing down on them. Galion shook off the last vestiges of sleep and availed himself of Taurnil's proffered hand to pull himself up. The scant few hours of rest he had been able to steal had replenished him, but only barely.

"What is the sense of the men this morning?" he queried, "Is the end finally nigh?"

"It is what you would expect: angry, hungry, exhausted…determined." He drew in a long, deep breath, releasing it in a steady stream. "I dare not surmise what will happen today… I have thought us on the brink of absolute defeat only to have the tide turn in our blackest hour, and we have come close to victory on many occasions, only to have it ripped from our hands."

The smile faded from Taurnil's face, dour resolution supplanting the archer's innately gentle mien. 'This,' considered Galion grimly, 'is yet another measure of war. It is expressed not only in the number of bodies we burn and bury. It is in the faces of friends turning hard, the darkening of spirits. No herbal, no incantation, no laying on of hands will suffer the light come back to their hearts.'

"Well," Taurnil stumbled, suddenly at a loss for words under Galion's concerned scrutiny, "With Eru's blessing, we will speak again." He turned from his friend. "Perhaps I will have better tidings for you then."

Galion stayed him, clasping one of his hands between his own, and Taurnil felt the pulsing warmth of the healer's touch. The elf produced a flask from somewhere inside the folds of his tunic and offered it surreptitiously to Taurnil. Miruvor. The restorative elixir was in short supply these days, and it was a dear gift to receive it. He gratefully took a swallow, and as some weariness fell away, a hint of the smile returned to the archer's face.

_"No in elenath hîlar nan hâd gîn, nethron."_

* * *

In sallow half-light, the companies regrouped. Silently, prayers were sent, though later it seemed to many that Iluvatar had heard them not. Oaths were forged, though most went unfulfilled as their makers fell. Those not engaged in their avowals worked quickly and steadily at the business of war, restringing bows, fletching arrows, and honing blades.

Haldir folded Guilin's red cape, redder still for Guilin's blood staining it, fingering the riven fabric where the enemy blade had fallen, cutting wool, cleaving armor, rending flesh. He had carried it since Guilin's death, this vermillion banner, the standard of his own small but valiant house. He would bear it home to his mother and Rumil should he see this campaign through. Should he fall, Orophin would carry the burden of two cloaks, one red and one blue.

And if both should fall…

His father's loss remained a visceral ache deep within his body, like steel bands contracting around his heart. He recalled only in vague impressions the hour when news of Guilin's death reached him: Taurnil's arms gripping him, his friend's tears seeping through his hair and wetting his neck to mingle with his own… The gentle hands of Galion radiating warmth and finally sending him the ephemeral solace of sleep…Elemmakil's sonorous voice in his ear, whispering a lament…

In the dark, he would walk, pace the borders of the camp as if with each footfall he could traverse the landscape of his sorrow and leave it behind him. Frequently during those nights, Elemmakil was there, sometimes offering consolation, more often bearing silent witness to Haldir's despair.

Compared with the sympathetic condolences offered by friends and comrades, the marchwarden's consolation had been brutal. Yet in it Haldir found greater comfort and resolution. "Never again will you feel as bereft as you do at this moment," his Captain sternly exhorted, "because you will never again allow it. You will steel yourself because you have obligations greater than your own pain."

"Your brother looks to you for his courage; will you fail him? Will you endanger any number of your fellows because you are distracted by the loss of one?"

When the wound was no longer raw, he bade Haldir walk with him, and under blackened skies, he presented the archer with his father's cloak.

"The time for mourning is passed. Take his mantle and remember his blood spilled. Let that memory burn within you, for it is that fire which shall drive you. It is that fire which will purge your fear and guide your arrows true."

The Marchwarden charged that Haldir's duty as soldier and brother required him to forge anger from his sorrow and sacrifice his private grief to present a face of strength. And when at last, in the deep of night, that strength finally crumbled, Elemmakil wrapped him tightly in his arms and let him weep in ragged, wrenching sobs until no more tears would come.

Sometimes, come morning, Elemmakil held him still.

The seven years since Guilin's death had passed in the blink of a bloodshot eye. What, he wondered, is seven years to an immortal? Is there surcease of grief for the one who begat you? Named you? Taught you to wield the very bow you carry?

The squalling of war horns shook the elf from his grim reverie. He beheld a man pulling the standard of Elendil from the parched earth. The white tree with its seven stars had flown through the night side by side with the banner of Ereinion Gil-Galad, marking by their twinned presence the last stand of Edain and Eldar together.

Orophin stretched his aching arms, strapped on his father's blade and, aware of his brother's gaze upon him, offered up a wan smile that did not quite reach his eyes. Fear clouded his crystalline gaze, gilded with resignation and sadness. Haldir squared his broad shoulders, hoping his own disquietude was not so baldly evident, that his brother might take some comfort in his stalwart appearance, however contrived. Orophin was waiting for him to speak, anticipating the words that still brought him pain to utter. For they were not his words, they were but a purloined benediction, one that allowed the brothers a small part of hope and a great part of love.

He laid a lingering kiss on Orophin's head, his lips brushing against the taut pink scar just barely visible beneath his pale tresses.

"I will come back to you, young one," he quietly intoned, "for I do not willingly part from you."

With that, they moved to join their kindred on the steady march toward they knew not what.

* * *

When Haldir would later try to recall that final gruesome battle, his first memory would be of a palpable silence that thickened the air and left him fighting for breath. Only the impossibly slow beating of his heart breached the wall of nothingness, thundering in his ears.

He remembered his vision constricting, his awareness distilled to a focused beam illuminating only what lay immediately in his path. If he believed himself terrified beyond all reason on the parched flats of the Dagorlad, he knew himself enraged beyond all control at the foot of Barad-dûr. Blood roiled in his veins, thickened with vengeance, as he let loose round after round. At his side, Orophin bared his teeth and matched him shot for shot. The sons of Guilin extracted the price of their father's death with every arrow that met its target.

Arrows. Another memory. When his own were spent, he pulled rounds indiscriminately from the bodies of friend and foe alike. When those, too, were gone, he unsheathed his sword and charged headlong into the fray.

Finally his voice shattered the mute air, a deep, wrathful roar born in the darkest part of his heart, his father's name an oath and battle cry. He swept his steel in a lethal arc, watching it separate a head from a body, black blood spurting from the neck in a foul jet, mirroring the black plume of fetid smoke rising from Orodruin. Oh, but that sight pleased him, roused in him a hunger he had never known before, a murderous lust. That lust only grew with every corrupt, misshapen adversary he brought down. Burned brighter and hotter with each drop of tainted blood he spilled. Later, he would shudder at the recollection, unnerved to recall the vicious desires lurking within him.

He remembered Elemmakil's uncanny grace, his blade scything a wide swath through the oncoming horde, and even as his own strokes fell he recalled thinking the Marchwarden utterly beautiful in his deadly fury.

But the memory that gripped his mind like no other was the coming of Sauron and the soul-chilling shriek of his Nazgûl. Briefly then did his blood lust cool, tempered in equal parts by terror and the epiphany that he would not likely emerge from this battle alive. More terrible than the shriek of the shadow wraiths was the low, deadly hiss of the Dark Lord's barbarous mace rending the very fabric of the atmosphere with each threshing stroke. Bodies flew, breaking against the craggy mountainside.

Haldir did not mark the fall of Gil-Galad, or the smiting of Elendil. He could but barely recall the obliteration of the accursed citadel down to its very foundations. He knew not that the strength of men had failed, that Isildur claimed the Ruling Ring for his own. All this he would learn later, and it would seem to him as legend and lore, despite his very presence within the tale. What he did recall in those final moments was the rising of a wind so acrid and rank he feared it poisoned. As the gale rose, he fought to turn his head against the swirling sand to find Orophin, but his brother stood some distance away. A tide of sheer panic rose within him as the tempest raged with such force that he was blown from his feet, violent tremors quaking beneath him as though the very earth sought to break itself asunder.

Then, he remembered, the heavy silence returned once more.

* * *

Amroth gripped Thranduil in a vice-like embrace. How alike they were, both sons of fallen kings, both leading home the ragged remnants of their wrecked forces from a battle yielding only a tentative victory.

"This is not over, Amroth," the woodland king intoned, fixing his counterpart with steely eyes. "The failure of men will find the shadow returned to us. I know not when, I know not in what form, but mark me: it will return."

Amroth absorbed Thranduil's augury with a dismayed sigh. Could there not be some small bit of rejoicing at the end of this horror without giving thought to horrors yet to come? Yet the Lorien king knew Thranduil spoke true, and his heart ached for the knowledge.

How long? How many years of peace might they enjoy before finding themselves once again in arms in dark country? Could they again prevail?

* * *

"You fought well, Haldir."

Elemmakil's voice caused Haldir's stomach to seize. Since Guilin's death, the sole remaining Marchwarden had taken it upon himself to both console and counsel Haldir, but lately, their meetings had taken on a decidedly different edge, one that set his blood racing in confusion and anticipation. A certain tension had emerged, but Haldir assumed with no small bit of embarrassment that it was merely his own one-sided infatuation.

Elemmakil's legacy was formidable, indeed: Keeper of the First Gate of Gondolin and one of the few survivors of the Hidden City's fall, servant of Turgon, comrade-in-arms of Ecthelion of the Fountain and Glorfindel of the Golden Flower. The Marchwarden had fought side by side with elves whose deeds were the stuff of legend. But even had Elemmakil's reputation not all but hallowed him to Haldir, his boisterous surety and ready laugh would have smitten the young galadhel no less. Now having seen him in battle, fearless and masterful, and having received his palliative attentions, Haldir's admiration for his Captain blossomed fulsomely.

But where the untried recruit eyed the Marchwarden through the golden filter of a stripling's hero worship, the battle-tested archer viewed his captain in a rather different light. He still thought with wonder on the stories of Elemmakil's history, revered the confidence and reveled in the amiable laughter—though laughter came less frequently now—but there was something more. Something darker. Desire.

"I was but one of many," he demurred. Elemmakil now stood toe to toe with him, and though Haldir was but a hand's span shorter, he felt infinitely small in The Marchwarden's charismatic presence. The closeness of their bodies perturbed him.

"Do not belittle your valor. You are young yet, but already you have been tested and proven." Elemmakil's eyes fell briefly to the cloak in Haldir's arms then returned pointedly to the archer. "You have weathered a great loss."

"He would be proud, Haldir. I am proud."

Haldir's cheeks burned. Base attraction aside, the captain's regard was as important to him as his father's had been. Elemmakil, like Guilin, embodied the spirit of his office. That simple sentence, those three small words, represented the epitome of praise, and inwardly, it delighted him beyond measure.

Outwardly, however, he turned skittish as a colt under Elemmakil's direct and prolonged gaze. He fought to stand the deep stare, but a challenge lurked in those unblinking orbs, one that he could not quite decipher. Did he imagine it was lust?

If it was, he reasoned, t'was only his own. Despite hunger and exhaustion, the flames that coursed his blood in those final days of war had not yet been entirely quenched, leaving him unsettled, and more than a little agitated. It was beyond reason to hope the Marchwarden's stare mirrored his own state, was it not? To make such an assumption would be to overstep himself, to risk utter humiliation. Abashedly, he offered a feeble excuse to the Marchwarden and asked to take his leave.

Elemmakil's lips curved in a small, knowing smile, one dark eyebrow rakishly cocked as he dismissed the anxious warden. _Indeed_, he mused, _this one dares not speak his desires, yet he wears them plainly enough_. He would wait for nightfall and then perhaps pay the archer another visit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Rohan, Second Age 3441**

At day's end, the elves broke from their weary homeward trek. Orophin had not the heart to eat; another meal of stale water and lembas only served to remind him how long it had been since he had taken other sustenance. Nor did he wish to sit with others as they recounted the campaign, from first skirmish to the last savage morning, each painting in vibrant strokes his own heroism or tragedy. He wanted no more of battles or blood or loss of life. He wanted home.

Haldir followed his dispirited brother to their tent in silence, watching as he dropped his bow and quiver beside his bedroll. Only Galion regarded their departure, sending the brothers his wonted look of concern before turning his face back to the fire. They stripped what armor they could safely spare, leaving on their boots and hauberks. At home, Orophin could rarely be persuaded to wear shoes unless duty or decorum required, and Haldir could read his brother's frustrated unspoken desire to free his road-sore feet. But even now the land was not safe. Fell creatures, now masterless and desperate, roamed freely and struck with fury. The soldiers slept in shifts, and lightly at that.

He perched at Orophin's side, observing the rise and fall of his brother's chest as he slipped into what little reverie could be had, then leaned in to lay a kiss upon the flaxen mane. Not so long ago, Orophin would have balked from such attentions, taking them as an older brother's condescension rather than a friend's comfort. How much he had changed in the years since they had left home with their father, from an impetuous, competitive youth whose love for Haldir was matched by his obstinate need to prove himself an equal, to an equal in truth, restrained and reflective. The bond between them was wrought strong. He was almost mute of late, his eyes holding sorrows Haldir feared would never be assuaged, and it vexed him that he knew not what solace to offer.

"He sleeps, yet you do not."

Elemmakil manifested out of thin air at the mouth of the tent. His strong features were softened in the dim light, mahogany highlights revealing themselves in the braids of his dark hair, but Haldir could not bring himself to look away from his brother, fearing what he might see in the Marchwarden's eyes. Or what the Marchwarden might descry in his.

"No," he whispered, "I do not believe I will find much rest tonight."

The Marchwarden offered a doleful, empathetic smile

"Perhaps you would like company."

Finally looking up, Haldir saw the same adamantine stare that had accosted him that morning, the stare declaring Elemmakil's words had been not an offering but an order. Leaving Orophin to his uneasy dreams, he followed the Marchwarden away from the camp.

* * *

One pair of eyes marked the departure of the archer and the Marchwarden, narrowing as they followed the retreating forms, the watcher's lips curling resentfully. Haldir, the elf seethed, grows overbold. It was expedient to ameliorate frustrating jealousy with bitter aspersions rather than to simply admit that Haldir had once again bested him, taken the prize he too sought, even if he had never spoken of it aloud. With a final withering glare sent unseen in the dark, Feredir turned and stalked back to his tent.

* * *

Haldir did not know how long they walked, or how far, only that the small cooking fires of the camp seemed as distant sparks. Here, the woods wrapped around them like a blanket, thick, noiseless, and dark. There was no question what manner of company Elemmakil offered, and Haldir's entire body thrummed in anticipation of what was to come.

An ancient oak loomed before them, dark boughs stretching out above them like arms opening for an embrace. Elemmakil accorded no words as he turned to face the archer, but the chill air whispered its own beguiling song through leaf and branch. Strong hands, blistered and abraded, reached out to touch Haldir's face, mapping a trail slowly down his temple and across his cheek, coaxing a slight gasp as they trailed over his lips.

Haldir closed his eyes as the warrior leaned into him, his very nearness evoking shudders, and felt the heat of the Marchwarden's breath against his skin. His heart thudded violently in his chest—could the captain hear it? – and already he could feel his blood pooling in his loins.

"You are no novice to war, Haldir," the Marchwarden murmured, the words humming against Haldir's neck. "Are you novice to the comforts one warrior can offer another?"

Simply hearing his own name spoken by such a one in such a voice was nigh enough to find him undone. He had been aware of the heated and feral desires of those facing peril or barely escaping it since his earliest days in the guard. In such close quarters, simple camaraderie was often shaded with suggestions it would have been impossible to miss, even had it not drawn him. It had not taken him long to embark on his own explorations, beginning with fumbling assignations he shared with others as green as himself, and culminating more recently with precipitate and violent collisions of frenetic hands and hungry mouths fighting to purge battle-driven bloodlust.

But these had always been couplings of equals, of friends. He never would have given serious consideration to approaching a warrior so much higher in rank and reputation, no matter how appealing the idea of it might have seemed in a fervid dream. Now, in the close quiet of the copse, it was his much-vaunted captain approaching him, and while his body was quite certain of its reaction, his mind reeled, feeling as if he had accepted a challenge without knowing all the rules of engagement.

A slight shake of his head was his sole response, fearing his voice would betray his nervous eagerness, his body trembling with barely-contained apprehension. Receiving tacit assent, the Marchwarden assailed his mouth in a plundering kiss, rough, but more ravenous than ravishing. Hands tangled tightly in Haldir's hair and his body was pinned hard against the tree's wide and welcoming trunk. Haldir's senses were overtaken by the intensity of the captain's closeness, his heat, the weight of his body trapping him firmly.

The captain's vehement kisses drew the very breath from his lungs, drank the air from deep in his throat. Such was the bliss of submitting to them completely that he could not stay the needy whimpers wrung from his mouth.

Yet to receive the Marchwarden's vigorous attentions was not the same as to return them. He still feared that he did not know what was expected of him or even allowed, feared he might cross some boundary he had not been made aware of. But the urge to touch, to react and engage, overrode rational thought. His arms, rendered leaden and useless in the wake of the captain's initial onslaught, sprang again to life. When his fingers, likewise reawakened and tingling, traced the stark angle of the Marchwarden's cheek, the soldier drew in a sharp breath through flared nostrils and deepened his assault. Encouraged, the callused tips of the archer's fingers ghosted over his captain's ears, pushing aside the thick, dark mane, and down his neck, eliciting a deep growl.

Haldir longed to touch his captain's smooth skin, imagined what it was to know the planes of his well-muscled chest, but heavy mail kept their bodies at a frustrating distance. Their loins were yet ungirded, and Haldir felt the press of the Marchwarden's hardness against his thigh, his own straining in answer. He shifted, widening his stance to bring them together, rewarded when the Marchwarden rubbed hard against him, the friction of their heated contact nearly unbearable.

It was only by desperate will that the young archer maintained a semblance of control over himself. The captain was fiercer in his attentions than Haldir had imagined, though many nights he had envisioned this very scenario, taking himself in hand and stroking himself to completion with a vision of the Marchwarden's body searing his mind. Those visions had held his body in thrall and yet they paled utterly beside the fearsome reality of the elemental being bearing down on him now.

The warrior's hand grew heavy in his locks, subtly urging him to his knees. Haldir required little encouragement, clawing at the laces of the elf's breeches until they slid loose around the warrior's hips. Haldir's breath caught in his chest. The proud flesh now before him mirrored in every way the strength and vitality of its possessor, and bespoke his intimidating virility. Already it glistened with growing need. Any attempt Haldir hoped to make at prolonged and artful pleasuring was now hopelessly lost to covetous desire; he sheathed the Marchwarden in his mouth with a single stroke.

The soldier's heady musk was as redolent of anger and sorrow as it was of lust and need. The burnt smell of battle radiated from his skin, a potent and familiar scent Haldir knew they shared. His sweat transmitted in ash-tinged, salty silence an understanding of their craving for even the most fugitive companionship and release. The terrible need to feel, for however transient a moment, anything other than rage or fear.

Though his own body hummed with need, he kept his attentions focused on his captain, plying lips and tongue as adroitly as he could, knowing that this was a proving ground in its own way as surely as the plains of the Dagorlad had been. His battle skills had won him attention and favor from the Marchwarden; he hoped he would display comparable promise now, for he certainly desired his captain's attention in this way as he desired his respect on the field. His tongue dipped to taste the gathering evidence of the Marchwarden's pleasure. When his teeth slowly raked over the ridge running the whole of the length, the warrior let loose a sharp hiss and bucked his hips. Haldir's mouth was fulsomely ridden.

The younger elf was thrilled to hear the noises his ministrations elicited, yet unaccustomed to the Marchwarden's formidable size, each lunge threatened to force tears from his eyes. He was filled almost to choking, but Haldir willingly took what he was given. He would serve as dutifully in this way as in all others, and his service was duly rewarded in shallow, panting breaths and in the tightening grasp of fingers in his hair. Thus praised, his mouth worked with fervor unabated in spite of the soreness of his jaw and the aching throb of his own unanswered need, and at last he felt the tensing of the Marchwarden's body which surely heralded his release.

"Hold, Haldir…hold… yes…"

A feral roar emanated from deep in the warrior's core, and Haldir braced himself with his hands tightly gripping the captain's hips. Even as the shuddering thighs began to still and the sated body softened, he continued his attentions with gentled ardor until his hair was sharply tugged, summoning him to his unsteady feet.

"Up, archer…"

Elemmakil's voice was throaty and ragged. Again Haldir found his mouth taken in a voracious kiss, the hand in his pale, tangled locks slipping to cup his neck. The other hand quickly reached to firmly grasp the straining hardness long neglected. He felt as though that hand appraised him. He hoped he would not be found wanting.

As if to answer his unspoken query, his laces were quickly and deftly undone and he was taken in hand. The fingers tightened around him and began to fist him with firm, expert strokes. Haldir surrendered gladly to the masterful hand that worked him, and he would certainly have tumbled quickly into his release had a disembodied voice not ground all movement to a halt.

"Captain… Yrch are massing to the West. We are preparing, but you are needed at the camp."

Cursing, the captain withdrew his hand from his paramour's breeches and began restringing his own. He gave Haldir a sincerely apologetic look and plied a swift, hard kiss on his bruised lips.

"I owe you a debt, archer. I would see it repaid."

And with that, he noiselessly took flight back into the night leaving a terribly frustrated yet utterly exhilarated Haldir to gather his wits and give himself a hurried and rather uninspired finish.

* * *

The skirmish was brief, and blessedly free from lethal casualties—for the elves. Their attackers stood little chance. That they had not even taken pains to hide their muster illustrated their desperation. They may have had numbers, but they lacked both leader and strategy, and were easily contained and dispatched.

The incident was little more than a brief diversion in the arduous and seemingly endless journey home. The Anduin had borne them swiftly to the Brown Lands at the dawn of their quest, but on their return they could only watch the brisk current speed toward the Falls of Rauros and the sea. Hobbled by their wounded, they forced the pace best they could.

Haldir and Taurnil walked at Orophin's side, making gentle attempts to pierce his brooding, but the Orophin was beyond their reach. Galion offered kind encouragements, promising Haldir Orophin's peace would be found once the eaves of the Golden Wood were in sight. His friend acknowledged his words with a hopeful nod. Haldir's own spirits were buoyed by thoughts, mainly impertinent, of the Marchwarden: both the memory of his recent frustration, and the intimation of future endeavours. He spoke not of their tryst save to Orophin, though Taurnil and Galion, with their sharp eyes and intuition, had likely drawn their own conclusions. Little opportunity was afforded the two to speak, let alone to seek again seclusion, but warm glances from unblinking grey eyes met him often along the trail.

It was beyond Haldir's notice that Galion's face fell ever so slightly each time the pointed gazes passed between the archer and his captain. He was oblivious to the pair of eyes that shot daggers.

Beleaguered days rolled one into the next, and their trek progressed. As weary feet foundered over the last league, ushered along by the welcome trill of the river, Orophin brightened, offering the first smile Haldir had seen in recent memory. But with Orophin's renewed hope came Haldir's measured apprehension, for it was he who would soon greet his mother and brother as the herald of their Guilin's death.

Under Ithil's silver sheen they beheld at last the welcoming glow of the woods. The warriors of Lorien had come home.

* * *

**Lothlorien, Second Age, 3441**

Those who waited at the edge of the wood gaped in horror seeing how few returned, and how those who did return came half-starved, battered and weary. The elves had prepared to offer a felicitous welcome to their valiant warriors, but all thoughts of gaiety dimmed as they perceived the dear price of victory. Those who had begun to heal from their losses over long years far from home steeled themselves to have their heart-wounds ripped open anew as those now learning the loss of one long awaited began to keen.

Soon, there would be laments, more artfully rendered memorials to the dead. But not now. Now there was only the dissonant howl of fresh grief.

Rumil stood straight and tall as a young tree, no longer the toddling babe left behind by his father and brothers. He was almost full-grown now, learning to wield a sword and bow as they did. He would not be left behind again. Faelas clutched him tight to the point of pain, marking his shoulders with the half-moon imprints of her fingertips. Beneath her fragile hands, he felt strong, knew he could be her strength. Together they watched and waited.

"There!"

She craned her neck to follow the line of Rumil's outstretched arm, and found Orophin, haggard and pale. Anxiously, she scanned the lines, knowing Guilin and Haldir would be nearby. They must be, she thought frantically. They would not separate.

She saw Haldir, then the familiar crimson mantle in his hands.

Rumil caught her when her legs could no longer support the weight of her anguish.


	5. Chapter 5

**Lothlorien, Third Age, 1**

When the elder sons of Guilin returned from Mordor with tidings of her husband's death, Faelas' grief subsumed her altogether, yet she did not fade: through her children's tenacious will, her spirit remained whole. But peace eluded her in the Golden Wood, and she took no joy from the mellyrn without her mate beside her. Every tree held a memory of their long life together, and their great boughs touched her with sorrow.

_All of Arda wears the taint of violence and death_, she despaired. _Two ages on these doomed shores and what have I found but loss?_ She had been a child when her parents met a cruel fate in the besieged haven of Eglarest, and she counted herself blessed that her memories of that time were but shadows. The death of her brothers at the hand of the Fëanorians was not likewise veiled. Their faces, bloodied and dying, came to her in dreams even still.

Lothlorien brought her respite from loneliness, and brought her Guilin. They frolicked together in The Golden Wood, and at his side she remembered what it was to laugh. They plighted their troth joyfully beneath the shining mallorn leaves, and in the births of three strong and beautiful sons, she found contentment, and a simple life in a quiet realm untouched in the main by war or darkness. _Would that it might have remained so. We who are gifted with eternal life, ought we not hope the Valar will see fit to give us at least an equal measure of happiness with our grief?_ But with Guilin's death, happiness fled with no hope of return, and the light of Lothlorien was forever dimmed in her eyes.

_Haldir could not hide his tears from me_, she sadly marked, _though he tried. Oh, how he tried! _And seeing her son's composure, even in the moment it broke and his sorrow revealed itself to her in bitter sobs, she knew he was lost to her; the child was gone, hardened by war and death, and the tall, fair elf who knelt at her feet and pressed her hands between his belonged to the sword and would never be content to do aught but serve it. _He was to blood craft born and will to blood craft fall._

Only Rumil had yet been spared, but he sought ever his brothers' trail, training as they had, that he might walk beside them and not follow behind. _Too soon will his soft hands turn rough holding tools of war. The love of a mother is unfailingly strong and ever abiding, but it does not turn sons from a father's path, nor cleave a child from his brothers._

_He will hate me for leaving… Yet should I stay, I would forever mourn that he follows them._

Her decision then was made: she would sail to the West.

* * *

"Marchwarden?"

Raising his head from the muster roll, Elemmakil was taken aback to see the dark circles framing Haldir's eyes, grey rings speaking more to an exhaustion of the spirit than to weariness of the flesh. He was newly returned from a patrol of the South Marches, still carrying his bedroll. The fingers nervously grasping and releasing the leather sword grip still had dirt under the nails and in the creases of the knuckles.

"I come to beg a favor."

Elemmakil motioned for the archer to sit, which he did uneasily. Haldir was not one to request considerations lightly, and his furrowed brow and downcast eyes suggested that he did so today under greatest need.

"I come on behalf of my family…" He stumbled, precariously balanced between dignity and desperation. "And I come on my own behalf as well. My brother, Rumil… He trains now with the wardens, but I have come to ask if he might train instead as a palace guard." His words suddenly filled him with a dread that he had overstepped himself in this request, and he rushed to shore them up. "My mother fears for his safety. She fears all her sons will fall as Father did. She wishes to depart for Aman and I hoped…" He stopped to breathe, thoughts still cautiously coalescing in his mind. "Orophin and I are set on our course, but Rumil will not reach his full measure for a few years more… Perhaps if he took another path…" His voice trailed off. Speaking his wish aloud, he felt now its leaden futility.

It pained the Marchwarden to see Haldir's head lowered in defeat. It was one thing to mourn a father, but to feel the responsibility to hold a family together was quite another. He had seen it often, and it never went smoothly. To plead Haldir's case to the Chief Sentry would be easy enough, though he wondered if Rumil had been consulted. Rivalry was rife between wardens and sentinels, the former belittling the latter as peacocks, and the peacocks decrying their detractors as boors, though in truth, both were highly trained and capable, and at need, the palace guard was no less lethal a force than those who walked the borders.

"What thinks Rumil on the matter?"

Haldir's eyes remained cast to the floor.

"I have not asked him."

_For you know what his answer will be, do you not?_Elemmakil sighed, knowing with certainty that the desired end would not likely come to pass, but he could not deny Haldir an attempt.

"I will send for your brother. If he is amenable, I will see it done."

Haldir finally met his eyes, but his look imparted little more than grim acceptance of the disappointment he was sure would come.

* * *

A bitter pall hung over Lothlorien, rendering the mellyrn ashen and grim. Haldir heard their mourning sighs as he wended a path through the bracken toward the glade, following the trickling stream to the half-hidden clearing long ago claimed by his friends and brothers. Perhaps he would find one of them there now, perhaps not. He was not inclined to seek company these days; a friend appearing in his midst was warmly welcomed, but of his own volition he sought them not.

_I am not good company in any case_, he sighed dolefully.

For all his yearning for home, he had sorely misjudged how difficult returning would be. Who could have foretold that a soft bed in a quiet wood, with danger fled and loved ones close at hand, could bring so many restless nights? All the creature comforts he had missed over years spent in harsh, barren lands seemed now foreign, and not as comforting as he remembered.

Home was no haven, merely a place to watch his family unravel. His mother's sorrow, Rumil's anguish, Orophin's withdrawal…each feeling the acute absence of the one who had been the very weft of the family cloth. It was little wonder Haldir sought a return to the predictable tedium and familiar austerity of the Marches. There, his unhappiness was assumed, but left buried unless and until he wished to uncover it. His latest patrol now finished, he wished only for the cool touch of soft moss under his back and the smallest glimpse of passing white above the dense forest canopy.

The gentle currents of the earth beneath his body lulled him, and he idly wove blades of long grass through his fingers, gazing skyward. Noiseless footfalls brought another to the glade, though Haldir did not look over until a shadow crossed his sight. He smiled a tired smile in mute recognition of Galion's presence. His friend stepped over him and settled himself between the roots of a mallorn that spread like the mighty fingers of Manwë, clutching and claiming the soil. It was some time before he asked the inevitable question.

"When?"

"In the spring. As soon as Lord Cirdan deems fit."

"Will you accompany her?"

"Perhaps. But I think not."

Faelas' decision to seek solace on the veiled shores had shocked and dispirited her sons utterly, believing as they had that in staving off her diminishment she would in time find her happiness renewed. They endeavored, each in their own way, to turn her mind: Haldir with impassioned pleas, Orophin through quiet discussion, Rumil railing against another perceived abandonment in tantrums befitting one half his age.

Now, her resolve to heed the sea-call implacable, Haldir resigned himself stolidly to preparing her departure, and helping Rumil come to terms with it. The latter was no mean task: the death of their father had already taken a heavy toll on the youngest of Guilin's sons, and this latest pronouncement fell on him like a heavy blow. Heart-sick beyond toleration, and having no place to lay blame, no acceptable explanation for his losses, his grief effervesced into rancor, and it had fallen to Haldir to mitigate his brother's volatile unhappiness.

"He blames me. He thinks I ought compel her to stay, but if she believes she will find succor in Valinor, I would not withhold it from her." He slumped back against the bole next to Galion, his head dropping heavily to his hands. "I have tried everything in my power to keep her with us. It is of no use."

He told Galion of his failed attempt to forestall their mother's departure by petitioning for Rumil's transfer. He hoped Faelas might take heart that the youngest of her sons was far from harm, but his effort failed to sway her, and Rumil, who was even now learning of Haldir's request, was likely to be furious.

Galion cringed inwardly at the mention of the Marchwarden. Haldir remained smitten with his captain, while he remained, as ever, merely the confidant and loyal companion. He tried to stifle his petty jealousy. _It is I who keeps his secrets. I alone know him as well as his brothers._

As if conjured by their conversation, Rumil roared into the glade, howling his brother's name with a furor that left no doubt he had learned of Haldir's intercession and deemed it, as Haldir feared, a betrayal of the first order.

"I believe your fire-drake cometh," Galion jested as the youngster crashed carelessly through the gorse.

Without preamble, he unleashed a torrent of coarse invectives Haldir unflinchingly stood, only the tensing of his fists signaling his displeasure. Galion's brow furrowed, taken aback by the contempt the Galadhel conferred on his brother, and the pronounced pain it evinced in his friend's aquiline features.

"How dare you impose your will on me as if you were Father? My fate is not yours to command!" The young elf was seething. He ground out his diatribe with undiluted bitterness. "I did not train long hours every day in your absence to don the pretty livery of the palace guard!" His blue eyes narrowed to glare icily at his brother's rueful countenance. "I need no one to intercede on my behalf, least of all you!"

Haldir did not rise to Rumil's screed, thinking to let the thunderhead blow over before attempting to tame his brother's piqued pride. But the storm failed to pass, and only gained in strength and fury.

"You do Father's memory proud, bending for your captain to garner favors! Tell me, _brother_," he sneered, his lips curling cruelly around the word, "what position did you assume in order to secure mine?"

Haldir had long borne the brunt of Rumil's anger, and had heretofore borne it with good grace, foregoing once again his own grief to stand as a target for the youngster's vented spleen. But in truth, Rumil's vitriol wounded him deeply. His patience for the misdirected abuse had worn thin, and this caustic insult in the presence of his oldest friend was more than he could countenance. He stood, preparing to address at last this tiresome insolence and his own hurt feelings, but Rumil brooked no interruptions.

"Do you find my skills lacking, _muindor_? Do you assume that 'tis only your province and Orophin's to defend this family and this wood? If you doubt my abilities 'tis only that you have not yet tested them!"

Haldir saw his brother's hand fall to grasp the pommel of his sword. _No_, he thought, staring in disbelief. _He could not possibly mean to challenge_…

Even as that thought fomented, the training instilled so deeply as to become instinct found him with his own sword at the ready ere the younger elf's weapon was even fully unsheathed. 'What is this foolishness?' was all the thought that could manifest before Rumil's blade came at him in a sweeping arc.

The clash of steel on steel rang cold through the glade as Rumil pursued and Haldir retreated. He parried his brother's blows, unwilling to take an offensive stance against the overwrought youth. The younger elf's lack of years and experience hardly posed him a threat, and greater was his concern that his pronounced advantage might bring Rumil to harm. But Rumil was intent on making his point, and when it became clear he meant to see his challenge through, Haldir abandoned restraint to bitterness, leaving Galion to stand gaping at the sight of brother raising arms against brother.

Hesitant to interfere lest it only inflame the fraught situation, Galion set to find Orophin, hoping Guilin's middle and most temperate son might intervene, but Haldir guessed his intent and called to him.

"Leave it! We will resolve this."

Galion held, debating the wisdom of allowing their resolution to proceed. In the end, he left the brothers to settle their differences attended only by the trees, which bristled at the anger thrumming through the air.

Had they sparred to train, Haldir would have allowed himself impressed by his brother's speed and stamina. But training they were not, and his tolerance for the youngling's recklessness was finally tested beyond his endurance. If Rumil thought to prove a point by challenging him, Haldir would see his own point proven when the whelp owned himself bested. He struck quickly, aiming his strokes to fall within a hair's breadth of his brother's skin, close enough for the youngster to nearly taste the sting of the blade as it passed over him. Rumil, meanwhile, pursued with unabated fervor, though his form began to lapse in his agitation and his blade fell with increasing desperation and decreasing precision.

And then Haldir saw it: a quiver of the chin, imperceptible, perhaps, to any save one who knew Rumil's face as well as his own, but patent enough to a brother. The younger elf was near his breaking point.

He stepped close, the proximity of their bodies rendering the broad strokes that comprised the bulk of Rumil's training nigh impossible. Rumil was finally forced into a retreat to block Haldir's more subtle and unpredictable movements. So distracted was he, coming now to full comprehension of his folly, that it took little effort on Haldir's part to sweep out with his leg and merely kick his feet out from under him.

Rumil's breath left him in a rush, knocked from his lungs as he landed flat on his back with an audible thud. Furious, Haldir poised his blade at his brother's throat, prepared to claim his victory. But seeing Rumil's face, his rage fled. It was coursed with tears and sweat, the contortions of anger given way to unmitigated shame and despair. Haldir tossed aside his weapon and extended his arm to the young swordsman sobbing on the ground before him.

He jerked Rumil to his feet and the vanquished elf threw his arms around his brother's neck, yielding at last to the full force of his misery, his body wracked with sobs, limbs quaking from exhaustion. Haldir enfolded his brother's withy frame in his arms, rocking him gently until his weeping abated and the hitching breath calmed. Rumil clung desperately even then, burying his face in the warm cradle of Haldir's neck and a wave of grateful relief washed over him when he felt the elder elf cant his head to press his cheek against him in the now-silent dell.

The voice finally pushing past the tight lump in Rumil's throat was that of a timorous child, not that of a would-be warrior.

"Forgive me Haldir, I did not mean …"

"I know," came the whispered response.

"I do not want her to leave."

"I know."

"I miss Ada."

Haldir tightened his jaw, drawing a slow breath to still the tears that threatened to spring from his own eyes.

"Sweet Rumil…I know."

* * *

As twilight wrought an amethyst glow across the sky, Haldir found himself again set adrift, wandering aimlessly over hidden paths deep in the woods with no clear destination. He was heartened for his reconciliation with Rumil- It was sweet indeed to feel his brother cling to him rather than to be forced away with angry words and cold glares. In truth, those slim, whip-strong arms around his neck had been as much a reassurance to Haldir. For he, too sought forgiveness, fearing Rumil was in some part right, that he should have fought longer and harder to turn their mother's path. His conscience would not soon withdraw its pricking claws.

But despite renewed peace between brethren, He could not bring himself to go home. Not yet. The events of the day had left him spent, yet restless. He had sent Rumil off with a kiss and a promise to speak with him again later and then set out alone. Wandering far from the marked paths, he found a stand of young birch trees which called him forth with their gentle whispers. He laid a broad hand across the pale, papery bark to feel the gentle rise of the sap.

"Haldir..."

Whether it was by coincidence or design that the Marchwarden should be traversing these same paths he did not know, but he felt his heart beat faster at the the sound of his voice. Elemmakil proffered a guarded smile.

"I am not the tracker your father was. I nearly lost your trail more than once."

_He sought me? Why?_

"Rumil was not happy when he took leave of me. I failed to convince him that to serve as a sentinel was privilege and not penalty. 'Tis a credit to him," the Marchwarden japed, his smile broadening, "That he managed to maintain his composure until he was dismissed. For a moment, I feared he might simply burst into flames in front of my eyes."

Haldir allowed himself to laugh, looking up shyly. "No, that display was saved for me."

The breeze of levity shifted when the Marchwarden held his eyes in his grey gaze, which was neither the commanding nor predatory look he anticipated. It was simply kind.

"And how do you fare, Haldir?"

Haldir was not sure how to answer: Schooled now in the swallowing of grief, he feared an admission that he felt utterly at loose ends might be read as the weakness that it was. That Haldir believed it was. The Marchwarden's steady voice filled the silence.

"I have not forgotten that I owe you a debt. And it seems that you are perhaps overdue for some distraction."

He gestured in the direction of a more clearly marked path, his full lips smiling with enticing gentility.

"Come."

Haldir followed.

* * *

After a long and silent walk all too reminiscent of their initial encounter, they reached the captain's quarters. Haldir would have enjoyed a moment to take in his surroundings, relishing this rare glimpse into a heretofore hidden and closely guarded realm, but the Marchwarden was swift in commencing with his distractions.

He found himself summarily stripped of his tunic, his breeches loosened, and led to a wide bed as timidly as a lamb to slaughter. Wherefore this diffidence? He was no greenling to bed play, nor to the attentions of the captain himself, yet he trembled all the same.

The captain slid into the bed beside him, similarly stripped to the waist. His chest was broad and more heavily muscled than Haldir had imagined. His bare skin gleamed even in the fading light. Haldir lifted a hand to touch it but stopped himself, once again unsure. _What is protocol when you lie half-bared on his bed?_ The very thought was absurd enough to elicit a small, sheepish grin. Elemmakil caught his hand before it retreated and brought it to his chest. Haldir felt the strength of his grip, the rumble of his voice and the deep beating of his heart resonating beneath his palm.

"At this moment, I am not your captain. Lay duty aside, _pen neth_... here we serve only each other."

The Marchwarden loomed over him, casting a shadow across his body like a great bird of prey. Haldir shuddered, unnerved by his vulnerability. He fell to his back as the Marchwarden's lips covered his, his tongue seeking entry willingly given. Haldir allowed his hands to rove the wide expanse of pale, hard flesh, each line and angle crafted though years untold of swinging sword and pulling bow. It was a body that felt near as familiar as his own. He was drawn helplessly in to the kiss, melting instantly when strong arms drew him close.

When his captain's hands began to slide over his arms, massaging the tight muscles there, Haldir had a moment's misgivings: he knew his body was strong and well-formed but under the well-traveled hands of the Marchwarden, he felt terribly self-conscious and uncertain. When a callused thumb made a slow, studied circle around his nipple, he ceased to care.

There was no longer a need to rush, and the frantic desperation of their joining in the wilds of Rohan was supplanted by a far more pleasant sense of exhilaration, and the easy enjoyment of exploration and discovery. Hands mapped the contours of bodies, questing over new terrain. Lips surveyed a landscape of flushed skin and tongues parlayed in hungry mouths, breaking only for breath.

Yet as Haldir's hands strayed lower, reaching to return the fervent touches he was receiving in kind, they were gently brushed away, raising in him concomitant feelings of apprehension – was his touch not pleasing? - and a wanton desire to simply stretch out his lithe body and accept wholly the pleasure freely given. But it was no easy thing to lie passively, his hands were drawn reflexively to the Marchwarden's body and enraptured by the steely build softened just slightly by warm skin, by the proud angle of his jaw and the long line of his back.

The Marchwarden's lips found purchase on Haldir's neck, his tongue feeling the archer's pulse throbbing strong and fast there, that glorious sensation of life beating steadily against his lips. His mouth traveled further down, his breath warming the tensed muscles of Haldir's chest, his teeth raking a tawny nipple. Haldir shivered and bucked in response, a hand flying to his mouth to stifle a low moan. The captain's lips curved lasciviously.

_Even in his passion he fights to keep discipline. My rank intimidates him yet._ He found it both amusing and endearing, the archer's struggle to reconcile decorum with pleasure. _No doubt he will struggle long; he does not readily dismiss duty._

But Elemmakil had no intention of allowing duty to remain in the forefront of Haldir's mind. Returning to claim another long and heady kiss, he slid his hand down the archer's lean, quivering stomach, feeling it dance when his fingers traversed the taut and delicate skin at the juncture of hip and loin. He reached for the hardness already twitching in foretaste of ease. It throbbed in his hand, begging for his touch. He was pleasantly intrigued, as he always was with an _ellon_ beneath him, that steel hardness should be clad in such sweetly silken skin. With deliberate leisure, he slid his thumb in a tantalizing circle around the head.

Haldir hissed through clenched teeth, his entire body tensing. The hand that worked him did so exquisitely, bringing him to the brink and pulling him back again and again until he thought he would go mad with pleasure that teetered perilously on the edge of pain. But with the exception of a few soft whimpers and bracing breaths, he gave no voice to his pleasure, though he was almost broken by the effort required to maintain at least that small bit of dignity under his captain's inflaming touch. At long last, the Marchwarden dealt the mercy stroke that delivered him to completion. His back arched violently and he gasped like a drowning man breaking the surface of the deeps, eyes rolling wild in their sockets as his release spilled from him in fevered spurts.

It seemed an age before he recovered himself and saw the Marchwarden regarding him with a pleased, perchance amused, expression, yet his captain's desire had clearly not been appeased. He began to shift and slide himself down the bed, ready to requite him, but Elemmakil pressed him back to the pillows.

"Perhaps later."

"But will you not be uncomfortable?"

Elemmakil smiled indulgently at Haldir's earnest query. "A captain must practice self-control in the extreme. I will consider this an exercise in discipline, and a full settling of our account."

Haldir returned his smile lethargically. The combination of overwhelming pleasure on the heels of emotional trial found him falling drowsy, but to heed the call of sleep would surely be impertinent. Elemmakil watched the conflict play silently across Haldir's face. He leaned in close, stilling his companion's struggle with a whisper.

"Sleep now. I will wake you." It was but a moment before the clear blue eyes lost focus.

_An enticing enigma, this young archer,_ Elemmakil mused. _So like his father, yet so much his own. I have seen him kill with brutal efficiency, yet he quakes under my touch like an untried boy._

In the wake of Guilin's death, he thought only to console the son of a fallen comrade, but soon he sought out Haldir for his own merits, which were many: He was a good archer and reliable soldier, well regarded by his fellows. He bore the markings of one who might well lead in his own time. That he was also surpassingly fair had been almost an afterthought.

Almost.

Elemmakil carefully extricated himself from the disheveled bed and left Haldir to rest. He knew well the difficulties attending a warrior suddenly thrust back into the forgotten routines of life. It never brought quite the respite one hoped for. At least, not right away.

_We are not taught,_ he sighed quietly, _that returning brings its own hardships, and we cannot fathom home and hearth will fail to bring us aught but peace until we stand in front of that hearth, tending the flames yet not feeling their warmth. The chill passes in time, but never as quickly or as easily as we wish._

He cast a look over his shoulder, pleased by the sight of an elf at rest. He would not allow Haldir to pass the night in his bed. Not yet. But he saw no reason to rouse the young Galadhel right away.

_Let us all take our peace where we can find it._


	6. Chapter 6

**Lothlorien, Third Age 2**

The rider made swift and unhidered passage through the Golden Wood, his ithil-hued form leaving a tall shadow in his wake. He was as dear as a son to the forest realm and great friend to its king; his return was most welcome.

"Well met, my Lord!"

To the Marchwarden's greeting, he inclined his head. "Did we not dispense with formalities long ago, Elemmakil?" His stern face warmed as he swiftly dismounted to meet the figure striding toward him, smiling brightly and extending an arm for a greeting.

"Too long has your absence been, Celeborn."

"Yet this realm is ever foremost in my thoughts."

"I am discomfited that you travel alone," Elemmakil admonished. "Even now it is not well done."

Celeborn took the gentle reproach with a smile. "It may not be well done, but it is expediently done; I have little patience for retinues."

The Marchwarden took up the reins of Celeborn's mount and started them down the path towards the training grounds and stables. "They have been much improved since last you sojourned hither, and we have great need of them. Too few returned from Mordor, and those who stand in their stead are in the main young and untrained."

As they walked, they spoke on the matter bringing Celeborn hence: the induction of the new Marchwarden. Guilin's boots were not readily filled; the Dagorlad and Barad-Džr had claimed most of the oldest and most experienced warriors, and of those remaining, few were equal to the task. After twice refusing Elemmakil's call, an elf called Talathion had agreed to take the oath, though he stated plainly his concern that he knew only how to serve, not how to lead. Tonight, with much fanfare, the reluctant warrior would take his new rank, the path of duty bringing him to a destination he did not seek.

The path they followed opened to a wide clearing, and while formal exercises had ended for the day, many remained to continue their practice. At one end, two young elves faced off in a dusty ring, at the other, the more seasoned wardens engaged in a contest of skill: each shot a quiver of arrows, awarding points for certain targets. Once all arrows had been spent, the one whose tally numbered lowest was made to fetch the arrows of the others.

Celeborn noted all that had been constructed in his absence, remembering ages not so long past that the Sylvan elves bore primitive weapons and kept no standing army. Under Amdir's ruling hand, bolstered by Celeborn's own efforts, a disciplined and fearsome force had been forged, and here the remnants of that force now passed their skills to another generation. Celeborn's keen eyes missed nothing in their survey, least of all the familiarity he marked in the face of the young archer now looking intently toward his captain. He regarded the Marchwarden inquisitively.

"Guilin's son?"

Elemmakil nodded. "Haldir, his eldest."

"Has he his father's skill?" He noted the smooth precision with which the archer drew his bowstring, his arrow easily finding its mark in a distant target. _It seems he does_, Celeborn thought.

"In time, he will surpass his father," the Marchwarden quietly affirmed. He beckoned the archer, who trotted eagerly to his summons.

"Lord Celeborn, may I present Haldir, son of Guilin."

The young Galadhel inclined his head in obeisance. "Welcome back, Lord Celeborn. Your return has been greatly anticipated. Will you stay long?"

Celeborn smiled a bit cynically at the effortless delivery of the practiced diplomacy. Children of Marchwardens, like the children of lords and royals, learned from their earliest days the protocol of greetings, understanding that their behavior reflected on their fathers. Such courtesy became readily ingrained, slipping easily from their lips. Celeborn responded graciously, remembering his own training in such niceties, though he himself had little use for ceremony; he found it disingenuous.

"Only for a short while. But my lady and I shall in time return. This place is as much our home as any realm, if not more so."

The Marchwarden held out the reins and bade Haldir tend Celeborn's horse. Celeborn watched his reaction closely; this was a task for a young page or stable boy, not a warden. But Haldir's face registered no grievance. He reached for them without a thought, running a broad palm down the grey gelding's sweaty neck.

"With your leave, my lord, I shall walk him out for a bit before I put him up. He is still heated from your ride."

Celeborn nodded. "Of course. Do as you think best."

He assessed the young soldier, looking beyond the trained civility and seeing clearly the resemblance to his father: the proud bearing, the strong brow arching over cool blue eyes. Guilin's absence was strongly felt in this place; the trees lamented still, as did his son.

"Your father was long known to me, Haldir. He was a great soldier, and had my deepest respect. His service to Lothlorien will not be forgotten."

Haldir received his words gladly. "I hope that I might in my time serve this realm with the same skill and devotion."

The archer's face bore no trace of pretense or guile, and Celeborn knew he spoke not in the smooth tongue of politesse, but in heartfelt truth, and it pleased him._ I have little doubt you will, son of Guilin._

The archer saluted again, pivoting to the Marchwarden for the same, his eyes flickering up from his bowed head to light upon his captain's. Celeborn noted how the captain returned the gaze and intuited their mutual regard. As Haldir took his leave, a frost of concern cooled Celeborn's ageless features, echoed in his spoken warning.

"He is green yet, Elemmakil. Tread lightly."

Elemmakil's eyes trained on Haldir. In his usual economy of words, the Sinda had exposed him utterly. He schooled his voice to mask its defensiveness, though no doubt the other would discern it nonetheless. "I recall no children on the Dagorlad, Celeborn. He has fought at my side and I was glad of it; if he is green 'tis only in matters of the heart, and it is not our hearts we engage."

The Marchwarden recovered himself and turned away from the training field. "Come," he said. "The King will be most eager to receive you."

* * *

In blue and gold the standards of Lothlorien unfurled, revealing a panoply of bright stars on fields of azure abreast the golden rays of Anor. A river of blue cloaks flowed over pathways as the procession advanced to the call of flute and drum through the torch-lit woods to the Great Hall in Caras Galadhon. The flute's song was not sweet to one elf's hearing: the silvery notes steeped Elemmakil in melancholy, for it was to the music of flutes that the House of the Fountain marched on the night the Hidden City fell, and to hear them was to recall a grim loss. The Marchwarden donned a mask of dashing confidence and martial pride; dolor had no place on this night.

Elemmakil walked at the head of the line, and Haldir thought he looked beautiful, even princely, in his armor, repaired and polished to shine again like gold. His dark hair caught the lamplight as it tumbled over his broad shoulders. Tall and noble in his bearing, Tathalion followed in step, wearing an uneasy expression though he held his head high. Those waiting to fall into formation noted the encouraging hand Lord Celeborn laid on the elf's shoulders as he began his march. The sons of Guilin followed behind, given a place of honor to mark their father's memory.

At the end of the hall, the King stood arms akimbo, bedecked in robes of blue and green, the mithril circlet upon his head garlanded in fresh ivy. At his waist, glinting in the flickering light, the sword of Amdir, taken from his father's hands on the battle plain of Mordor. He was flanked by two young palace guards, each arrayed in green tabards broidered with gold Mallorn leaves and the device of the House of Amroth. _They are barely of age_, thought Elemmakil. _Too many of our new warriors grasp bows with hands better suited to wooden swords and hobby-horses. _

For the three brothers, the occasion was bittersweet; Tathalion was a good and loyal soldier, and they were pleased for his promotion, but it also recollected their father, and to Rumil especially, that loss was still near. As Orophin listened to the invocation, he perceived out of the corner of his eye Rumil scowling at a sentinel with outright contempt, and the young guardian was doing his utmost to remain at attention and keep his own eyes forward under the heat of such burning scrutiny. Orophin dealt him a hard pinch ere he begrudgingly freed the poor youth from his angry stare.

Haldir took no notice; his thoughts lay elsewhere. Watching Tathalion genuflect at the foot of the king, receiving the cloak of his office, he saw his own kneeling form there, his own shoulders draped in red. Not in the manner of foresight was this vision; it was but the inner light kindled when one comes to full knowledge of who they are, and where their fate lies.

Orophin had joined the guard to honor his father, and he stayed for it was all he knew. Rumil would not be parted from his brothers at any cost, and thus took up the sword as soon as he had strength enough to hold it. Though happy enough with their lot, they might well have found equal joy in other pursuits. For Haldir, there had never been another consideration.

He knew why he served, and it was not because he was Guilin's son, or because he desired rank or honor. Haldir served simply because he was called by the Valar to do so.

* * *

As the sky darkened from dusk to night, the tide of blue receded to the garrison. Having done with pomp and pageantry, the wardens regrouped for rituals of their own. Tathalion would be feted with much wine and song, the testimonials and ballads becoming more discursive and bawdy as the night grew long and the spirits sprang freely forth. 'Twas the Marchwarden's first test: to imbibe enough to be sporting to the friends who now served beneath him, but not so much as to relinquish self-respect or dignity- not an easy feat considering the sheer volume of wine the men had procured for this task.

Taurnil, seat firmly planted atop a wine barrel, waved to Orophin and Haldir. Their arrival had been delayed by a petulant Rumil complaining that he was not yet counted among the wardens, and thus proscribed from accompanying his brothers to their celebration. He was much aggrieved that he was to be sent home like a child, and more so to be reminded that, for a few years more, he would still be counted as such. If Orophin or Haldir felt any guilt over this, it was quickly quelled by the dark river flowing from Taurnil's barrel.

In short order, the gathering grew boisterous, the occasion providing much-needed levity for those who long had little to celebrate. Elemmakil stayed close at Tathalion's side, deflecting some of the more exuberant revelers lest the new Marchwarden find himself unable to stand ere he had even the opportunity to greet all his fellows.

Through the dense swarm of spirited comrades that Orophin and Haldir made their way so that they might offer their own congratulations to Tathalion. The new Marchwarden attended them with a measure of sadness. He needed no reminder that his rank had come in the spilling of his predecessor's blood. But Haldir smiled at him broadly before pulling him into an embrace. "You will do his memory proud, Tathalion."

As he stepped aside to make way for Orophin, Elemmakil acknowledged him with a raised glass and a slow nod. His eyes were glassy and his skin flushed; no doubt he, too, was seeking in his cup a reprieve from the gloom only just beginning to lift from one and all.

Weaving their way back through the throngs to rejoin Taurnil, Haldir saw Elemmakil edging away from the crowd, preparing to slip away with as little notice as possible. He followed the Marchwarden's departure with his eyes and turned to his brother decisively.

"I will seek him tonight."

Orophin had no need to ask of whom he spoke, and did not disguise his concern that his brother would be so forward. "Too much wine has made you overbold, perhaps."

Haldir smiled wolfishly. "Perhaps."

'Twas then that Feredir, and elf Haldir had long known, and nearly as long disliked, took a calculated step back directly in his path. The elf's wine slopped over the brim of the goblet and on to Haldir's tunic, a dark stain quickly blooming across the grey wool. The elf looked up and smiled coolly, drawling in a voice thick with sarcasm, "I beg your pardon, Haldir."

Haldir's lips curled as he stepped towards the offending elf, stopping only when Orophin clamped a hand down on his shoulder and hissed harshly in his ear. "Nay. This is no night for a quarrel." With some difficulty, he maneuvered Haldir away, Feredir smirking acerbically all the while.

He herded his chagrinned brother, now muttering slurred imprecations and exaggerated promises of retribution, into the dark cover of the rowan trees beyond the barracks. "I thought tonight of all nights he might have some courtesy," he huffed. "Take off your tunic. If you still plan to seek company tonight, you ought at least look like a respectable soldier rather than a wine-sodden ruffian."

"Then I shall look like a respectable soldier," Haldir quipped, "but I will remain a wine-sodden ruffian."

"That," Orophin reposted, exchanging his unsullied tunic for Haldir's, "is beyond my skill to remedy. Go. Have your fun while you may."

* * *

Haldir tracked the Marchwarden to a seldom used path overgrown with low branches and tangled roots. He had no clear course of action in mind, but he was fortified by drink and unwilling to consider consequence. He caught sight of his prize ahead and followed at a distance. Though while the wine emboldened him, it also made him careless; his foot caught up in a curling root and he stumbled gracelessly. When he recovered himself, Elemmakil was gone, the trail ahead completely clear. He froze, eyes scanning the darkness, trying to discern the route his captain had taken and saw nothing, no other path, no movement in the trees ahead.

Swiftly, an arm caught him around the neck from behind. _Feredir!_ He silently cursed his heedlessness and his antagonist's duplicity as he was jerked off balance. Reflexes dulled, he flailed out futilely with his arms ere he was borne roughly to the ground. But to his shock, it was not Feredir's mocking face which loomed above him now, but the Marchwarden's, his mouth deviously curled and eyes glinting with mischief and more than a little wine.

"Have a care, Haldir. One never knows what might follow at your heels in the dark. Or perhaps it is I who should be more careful... After all, I was the quarry tonight, was I not?"

Startled to speechlessness, Haldir did not even attempt to move, and Elemmakil watched with amusement as shock, confusion, and embarrassment registered in quick succession on the smooth, handsome face beneath him. He laughed, a joyous barking sound, pulling his warden up and brushing the dirt and dead leaves from his back.

"You should have sensed my presence sooner," he added with less mirth as he picked a burr from Haldir's hair. "In truth, you should not have lost sight of me at all. Never lose sight of your enemy, even for a moment."

He tossed the confounded archer a salacious grin, his hand lingering pointedly on Haldir's shoulder before ambling back down the trail, passing the spot where he had earlier vanished before casting a backward glance.

"Well? Are you coming?"

* * *

Barely had Haldir crossed the threshold when Elemmakil slammed the door shut behind him and caged him against it with his arms. Haldir no longer felt audacious; the Marchwarden was like fire: dangerous, unpredictable, and well beyond his ability to tame.

Elemmakil drew close, scenting Haldir's discomfiture like a wolf scents a hare; it aroused him. He ran his tongue slowly and deliberately across Haldir's lips, feeling them part for him even under the most cursory advance. Such quick capitulation made him smile hungrily and he pressed closer, grinding the evidence of his hunger against the Galadhel trapped between his arms.

"Is this what you seek?"

Haldir did not answer, bracing himself rigidly against the door and inhaling the sweet scent of wine from Elemmakil's breath. For a moment that stretched on and on, there was not a sound in the dimly lit room beyond the shuddering intake and exhalation of breath and the echoing battle drum of the Marchwarden's heartbeat setting a commanding pace.

"You were brazen enough to follow me...where flies your courage now, Haldir?" His lips hovered a hair's breadth from the archer's mouth and he could almost taste Haldir's disquiet, like sweat on skin. His control held by a thread; he fought the urge to pull the archer to his knees and take him hard right on the floor. "If it is my attentions you want, why do you quail rather than claim them?"

The voice teased, yet it was not playful, this toothsome gnarl, it was the growl of a gauntlet thrown. Haldir thought he knew the game now: Elemmakil was baiting him. The wolf was daring the pup to bite. Haldir wedged his hands between their crowded bodies and pushed the Marchwarden away from him, shoved him back hard, propelling him across the room, forcing him to his back on the wide bed and growing bolder with each step. He straddled the captain's body in a swift, decisive motion and looked him dead in the eye, summing him up warily, lip twitching in the beginning of a snarl. After a taut moment, Elemmakil broke, a lusty grin crawling over face.

"Good... your courage has not fled as far as I thought."

He pulled Haldir down against him and found that when their mouths collided, Haldir's tongue sparred with his to own the kiss, stoking his desires to an incendiary blaze.

Ardor fortified by copious quantities of good vintage lead to a liaison that was as much a wrestling match as a coupling. They rolled over each other, grappling and thrusting as they pulled the clothing from their bodies. Haldir's borrowed tunic lay in a heap half under the bed while the Marchwarden's red cloak lay irreverently tossed over armor earlier discarded. Had Haldir been more sober and less engaged, he would have marked this as the first time he had been fully bared before his captain, and his captain before him, and it likely would have unnerved him. But sober he was not, and all he marked was fervid desire, and the lust-darkened eyes of the Marchwarden who presently lay beneath him. He brought his body slowly down until they met in a long, unbroken line of heated flesh and pulsing need.

Tongues warred for primacy, darting and probing; teeth nipped at kiss-swollen lips, each claiming the other's mouth in turn. Nails scraped along flesh, reveling in the quivering of the hard muscles beneath the skin, hands pulled and grasped. Elemmakil jerked back his paramour's head, drawing hard against the long, pale neck until florid color bloomed at the surface. Haldir tried to suppress the groan now escaping his open mouth, but the intensity of his desire shattered his silence. _At last I hear his pleasure voiced,_ Elemmakil reveled and thrust hard against him, releasing Haldir's neck long enough to grind out his praise.

"The sounds you make are pleasing... do not withhold them from me."

To punctuate his point, he reached down and gave Haldir's length a slow, forceful stroke, wrenching a decidedly more vocal response from his partner.

It was Haldir on his back now, Elemmakil sliding in a slow serpentine down his body, marking his trail with lips and teeth and tongue. He gasped as one nipple was harshly twisted, the jolt of pain just as suddenly vanishing as the same tender spot was laved with a hot mouth. He registered the Marchwarden gripping his hips firmly, thumbs caressing the curve of bones and hollows of the skin there, but was rendered insensate when his swollen length disappeared into the depths of Elemmakil's mouth. He moaned at the sudden and overwhelming sensation of being taken in entirely, surrounded by gorgeous heat. He bucked up, an irrepressible response to such delicious stimulation, but his captain held him firm, leaving him free only to whip his head back and forth while he twisted the bed sheets in his hands.

The youth was all hardness and perfect form between Elemmakil's lips, the timidity and restraint demonstrated in earlier couplings burned away like first dew under the sun. Endearing as the shyness had been, he preferred this, Haldir moaning and undulating without reserve. The archer strained beneath him, the animal violence of his thrashing assuring Elemmakil that he was drawing irrevocably closer to his release. He slipped his hands from Haldir's hips, running them up to the archer's slim waist, and allowed him to thrust deeply and desperately into his mouth until, with his back arcing off the bed and a beautiful cry wrenching free from his throat, Haldir spilled his essence across his tongue.

Elemmakil stalked up the bed still feral, taking in with satisfaction the flushed face, the arm tossed across sweat-shining forehead and the rapid breath. He had no plans to let the Galadhel rest quite yet. He grinned predatorily and straddled Haldir's slick, heaving chest.

"I do believe I settled my account with you already, so unless you wish to find yourself in my debt..."

Haldir stopped his words with a lurid sneer. He kept his eyes locked on Elemmakil's as he took the Marchwarden's straining length fully. It was Elemmakil who broke the stare, his head lolling back and a moan rattling his throat as the beautiful young archer with the lovely mouth took him in thrall...

* * *

The night deepened and the effects of the wine diminished. Elemmakil pulled the sheet over them and stretched out his arm, encouraging Haldir to rest his head on his shoulder. Tonight he would not send the young one away.

Haldir shifted in the bed, enmeshed in his thoughts in spite of his comfort. Though thoroughly satisfying, their couplings had been naught more than skillful duels of hands and mouths. Never had the Marchwarden moved to take him as one man takes another, and surely it was not in the Marchwarden's manner to offer himself to be taken. It was, Haldir allowed, an intimacy in the extreme, although he would have submitted from the first had it been asked of him. He had even imagined his claiming in private moments, the searing pain followed by all-consuming bliss. Yet he did not give voice to his question, fearing it wanton. Or worse, to discover Elemmakil's interest in him superficial, unworthy of deeper expressions, for his own interest in the Marchwarden lay well beyond a passing tumble.

Elemmakil let out a slow breath, absently tracing circles on Haldir's shoulder with his fingertips. _I am not so drunk tonight as I am besotted,_ he thought with amusement. Dare he think on how long it had been since he had taken a lover of so few years? Long ago he had traded fevered romps with precipitous youths for quieter assignations with partners older and less rash. But he could not deny the pleasure he took from Haldir; such passion was invigorating, and it recalled to him a time long past. _That was not the same, do not compare them_, he chided himself, his amusement now tinged with old sorrow. His gaze slipped to Haldir's face, the serenity of afterglow marred by a slight furrowing of the brow. He wondered where the archer's thoughts lie, what concerns hovered in his mind. Against his better judgment and with Celeborn's warning words clamoring in his ears, he spoke.

"I would have more of you than the settling of accounts, or a drunken gambol. But it is no simple thing, Haldir. You must understand what I can and cannot offer, and what I would expect from you."

Haldir sat up to face him, his clear blue eyes wide and hopeful. Whatever worries had clouded his features moments before lifted, and he swallowed hard at the unexpected pronouncement. Elemmakil felt a stab in his heart at Haldir's rapt expectation.

_"He is green yet, Elemmakil..."_

"I expect discretion," he began. "I do not pretend to own a cold bed, but I will not make spectacle of my privacy. You will receive no favors. If anything, you will find me more demanding on the field, though I do not think you will disappoint me on that count."

These words were clearly practiced, and Haldir wondered who else they had been levied on, though so elated was he to receive them now that he chose not to dwell.

"Do not seek constancy from me, for you will not receive it. Nor will I ask it of you. I will ask for nothing that I would not freely offer in return. Duty is my mistress. I put none before her, and she alone receives my exclusive regard."

_"...Tread lightly."_

He let out another breath in a slow, focused stream, reaching out to stroke the archer's cheek tenderly. He stalled there, feeling the smooth warmth of Haldir's skin. _Words spoken cannot be later recalled._ The archer's eyes were clear and pale as beryl stones. He kept them locked on his own as he spoke his final piece.

"Beyond these walls you will accord me the respect and obedience owed my rank, but here you shall address me as your equal. I see much in you, Haldir, and your company pleases me. But make no mistake: ours is the bond of comrades. We are brothers-in-arms ere and after all else, whether we share our bodies or no."

Elemmakil slipped out of bed, crossing the room to extinguish the lone lamp still burning, almost unable to bear the undiluted delight radiating from Haldir's smile.

"You do me great honor, my ca- ...Elemmakil. I am flattered you find me worthy of your attentions."

Through the darkened room he regarded the outline of the archer's body stretched across his bed. _You are too worthy for what I can offer you, pen neth,_ he thought, unable to chase Celeborn's voice and the specter of guilt from his mind. _I hope you will not regret your words. I hope I will not regret mine._


	7. Chapter 7

**Lothlorien, Third Age, 7**

Two elves stepped forward, swords drawn. One was markedly taller and heavier, and wore a patently smug expression. The smaller combatant could not banish the trepidation from her face. They sized each other up, circling slowly in the dirt. The signal was given, and the bout commenced.

Shouts and cheers from the sidelines rose above the ring of clashing blades. Soon, grunts and gasping breaths joined the cacophony. The smaller elf held her own, but her opponent kept the pace of his assault strong; she parried his blows handily but rarely managed to get in a strike. He began a trenchant advance, deciding to use her insecurity to his best advantage. She was all but unwilling to advance on him, so if he came upon her at full speed, he reasoned, she would likely trip herself up in her retreat. He leaned forward and charged, a cry of victory already issuing from his lips.

With her defeat at hand, the smaller warrior saw nothing left to lose and dropped to a crouch, throwing her weight against the oncoming swordsman's legs. His momentum carried him over her back and he saw in that moment not his bested opponent, but the dry, hard ground rising fast to meet him. He dropped his sword in order to break his fall with both hands. She saw her opening and scrambled to kick the blade out of his reach.

When his initial shock wore off, he felt the tip of her sword pressed rather tightly against the back of his neck. Not quite enough to draw blood, but threatening. Slowly, the wide-eyed look of stunned surprise on the victor's face melted to confident pride. It had taken her a moment to fully grasp her victory, but once registered, she savored it fully.

"Do you yield?" 'Twas her voice now that held the smugness.

There was a pregnant pause before the larger elf laughed nervously beneath her blade.

"Yes, yes! By the Valar, I yield!"

The laughter of their audience died down as the Marchwarden raised his hand. His face was composed, but his eyes hinted at his pleasure that what had begun merely as a training exercise had become an important object lesson.

"What happened?"

The larger elf looked abashed as he dusted off his practice armor. "I thought I had her. I am far larger and saw no way she could take the upper hand."

Elemmakil stood up and strode to where the pair stood in the center of the well-trod ring. "You've made a novice error, my friend."

He turned to the group: "Never underestimate your opponent."

He turned then to the victor, clapping her on the shoulder as she stood proudly. "He will not soon forget this moment. I am willing to wager none will be so quick now to dismiss you for your size. Now we should see what a bout looks like when opponents are more evenly matched. Haldir, Feredir..."

The wardens rose and took their positions. Haldir nodded in acknowledgement to his opponent, but Feredir responded only with the narrowing of his eyes. His discourtesy rankled Haldir, achieving precisely its intended effect. There was no cautious circling when the signal was given, just a sudden lunge from both sides and the clamor of two blades connecting furiously.

Feredir gave Haldir no quarter; he was mercilessly pursued and immediately put on the defensive by a series of lightning-fast strikes. The blades sang as their edges slid together and pulled apart. Haldir feinted but Feredir was neither fooled nor distracted. He was single-minded in his pursuit of Haldir's defeat. With every advance, Feredir sought to shift their positions, turning Haldir's face to the sun to blind him, while Haldir fought to hold his ground. He had prepared to give a demonstration and he was disturbed by Feredir's viciousness, but if the elf insisted on a foul fight, he would have one.

Feredir lunged and Haldir parried, making a quick riposte that failed to connect, but Feredir's next stroke succeeded where Haldir's had failed. A fierce burn ran up his arm and out of the corner of his eye he saw a seam of red opening across his sleeve. When he looked up, he saw not apology or concern in the other elf's face, but rather unvarnished satisfaction. Nor did he show any sign of ending their bout. As the stain darkened and spread, his arm began to throb sharply, yet Feredir's assault did not abate in the slightest. The bout should have ended at first blood, yet to concede the match now was more than Haldir's pride could allow. To be bested was one thing, to be utterly humiliated in front of his captain and a passel of novices quite another.

The younger elves looked around nervously at each other. Clearly, something was amiss, the fighting too real, the animosity too disturbing. The demonstration had become a duel. Elemmakil sensed their growing discomfort. The match needed to be stopped. Now.

Only at his call did the two combatants stop their blades and step apart. Both were breathing heavily and trading murderous looks, the wound on Haldir's arm looking garish against a body rendered dun by a thin coat of dust kicked up from the ring. Elemmakil smiled easily to distract the young trainees.

"As you can see, when two fighters are well paired, a bout can go on with no victor until they wear themselves into the ground. Unfortunately, we do not have enough time today to follow this one to its completion."

Elemmakil dismissed the trainees, and when their numbers had dispersed, he crossed to Haldir and Feredir. "Follow me," he growled under his breath. Haldir's heart dropped to his stomach. They followed the Marchwarden's long strides back to the garrison.

* * *

If a look alone had power to turn an elf to a pillar of stone, it was the look that fell upon them now, fury cold as the Helcaraxë emanating from the Marchwarden's eyes.

"I ask you to demonstrate technique and instead you begin brawling like common tavern-crawlers! Explain yourselves!"

Neither Haldir nor Feredir spoke; they dared not even meet the Marchwarden's eyes.

"You are two of my better swordsmen and you are—were—respected wardens. By your behavior you have shamed yourselves and you have shamed me. Inexcusable."

To be dressed down in such a fashion was excruciating. Haldir was disgusted with Feredir and even more so with himself for being so easily baited. He would have squirmed under the mounting discomfort had he not been standing so rigidly at attention. His injured arm seemed to pulse hotly in time with the Marchwarden's angry steps.

"It was well within my right to take you to task in front of them, but as I expect you to train them, I could not afford to let you lose face to a greater degree than you have already managed on your own." He stalked like a caged wolf.

"These are no striplings. They will soon be with you on the Marches. They are not so green as to find you infallible purely on basis of your seniority. If you expect their obedience, you must give them an example to follow, and in that, you have utterly failed."

His eyes fell particularly hard on Haldir, whose shoulders slumped under the weight of his gaze and the heat of his anger.

"Long years have passed since I have lashed a man for poor conduct, but do not think my whip-hand is weak. You will taste it first hand if I ever see such disrespectful behavior again. If there is bad blood between you, remedy it soonest. Is that understood?"

Two humble voices chanted their accord.

"You have forfeited your leave. You will return to the borders with the next patrol in three days. You are dismissed." He waved with disgust at Haldir's arm, which was still seeping red. "See to that cut before it festers." He stormed out of the garrison.

Silence hung heavy in the room, the pervasive stink of shame hovering over them like a foul fog. Haldir looked over to Feredir and attempted to constrain the loathing in his voice.

"I cannot fathom how I have offended you that you would seek recourse that discredits us both."

Feredir glared at him. "No, of course you cannot fathom." He departed without another word.

* * *

"You wriggle like an elfling. Be still."

Haldir winced as Galion washed the cut on his arm and smoothed on a balm to numb the skin. It had been deep, and his ill-mannered grappling had only opened it further it. A few stitches were in order, and Galion turned to fetch the thin, curved needle and fine silk thread, though clearly it was Haldir's loss of face that was the greater wound.

"I do not understand it! He goes out of his way to antagonize me at every opportunity. T'was a training match! He has bested me at swords before, and he could have bested me fairly today, but that he had no desire for a fair bout. He did not want simply to take the match—he wanted to thoroughly unman me!"

Galion worked with a practiced hand, an even row of sutures following the path of his needle, each closed with a perfectly uniform knot.

"There has long been enmity between you. He envies you. That can come as no great surprise."

"Wherefore envy? I carry no higher rank, I have no privileges he does not. I have nothing for him to covet."

_Ah, but you do, Haldir, _Galion silently countered, knotting the final suture. "You must learn to ignore him."

Haldir scowled in response before examining his arm. "Impeccable, _gwador_. I shall barely carry a scar."

"You need no further reminder of your foolishness, I think."

Haldir smiled sheepishly. Even then Galion thought it a radiant smile. He cut a long strip of linen to cover his fresh handiwork, and hesitantly, knowing already the answer but hoping nonetheless, he spoke.

"Orophin has procured a cask of the season's first vintage and we plan to sample it tonight. Will you join us?"

Haldir laughed. "I weep for the day Alquonís turns my brother aside, for I have grown quite fond of her generosity with her father's goods. But no, I am expected elsewhere. Assuming I haven not fallen irreparably in his esteem after this afternoon."

Galion's face remained impassive. So it was as he thought: another night with the Marchwarden. It had become the rule rather than the exception of late. He hastily finished dressing Haldir's arm, and though Haldir found the bandage bound a little too tightly for comfort, he said nothing of it.

* * *

Haldir approached Elemmakil's quarters with great trepidation, the shame of the morning still churning in his belly. He was prepared to be turned away for his folly, though the possibility sickened him. It had been some time now since their liaisons first began, and Haldir's feelings for his captain had only continued to deepen. Yet always Elemmakil kept him at arm's length, close, but not overly so, and Haldir was oft left feeling off balance, fretting that the slightest misstep would find him put out of the Marchwarden's company. He knocked tentatively, awaiting an invitation. When he heard the Marchwarden bid him enter, he stepped cautiously inside.

Elemmakil came from the next room to meet him, his expression neutral. Though not angry, Haldir marked hopefully. He stopped half way across the room to address Haldir. His tone was level but deadly serious. A captain's voice, not a lover's.

"I expect I will never again have need speak to you as I did this morn."

"Aye, Sir," Haldir responded stiffly.

"What is your quarrel with him?"

Haldir shrugged. It seemed immodest to suggest jealousy, though he could find no other answer for the elf's evident hatred for him.

"Those with skill are never without detractors, Haldir, and you must learn to disarm them carefully. With effort, a detractor can become an ally, but it is all too easy to turn one to an enemy. Envy is a powerful force and pride even more so. A good leader knows how to defuse such tensions before they become dangerous."

"So what would you have had me do? Yield to him?"

"Yes. And cheerfully acknowledge his win. You would have shown him that you knew what he was about, but were prepared to let him save face. A win and a victory are not necessarily the same thing."

Haldir thought on that and saw the wisdom, though it was difficult to reconcile with his pride. It was not the first time, he reluctantly admitted, that the Marchwarden had hinted his pride needed tempering. He was overly sensitive to slights and did not respond to them lightly nor forgive them quickly. He acknowledged this weakness, but had not yet managed to overcome it. In matters where Feredir was concerned, he wondered if he would ever overcome it.

With a contemplative eye, the Marchwarden appraised the warrior before him. Haldir had spent some years patrolling the South Marches and the borderland along the Celebrant. It was time he understood how the rest of the realm was defended. Yet a wide patrol of the borders required the better part of a season at least, and such closeness, he feared, was ill advised. Already, occasional liaisons had turned to regular meetings, and while Haldir had become much endeared to him, always a voice in the back of his head warned him that he was allowing the young one to come too close.

_But if he must ever lead, I would have him prepared. It is for his own sake, and the sake of the realm I would take him with me. He must know every inch of the land he guards. _

A transparent justification, perhaps, but one he found tolerable. Haldir still lingered contritely in the doorway, awaiting a signal to proceed and clearly fearing he would be dismissed. The insecurity in those lovely blue eyes broke him; Elemmakil would discuss the wide patrol with him later. For the moment, reconcilliation was more pressing. He stepped closer and held out his hand.

* * *

Rivers of pilfered wine loosed tongues, and the night found four friends draped indolently over furniture and sprawled loose-limbed on the wide-planked floor. Conversation flowed freely as well; even the staunchest soldiers fall to gossip like a clutch of hens in the company of close friends. Their talk drifted, as was its persistent wont, into traded tales of conquest.

Orophin paused the long saga of his latest escapades to pry the mazer from Rumíl's hands. "Haldir will skin me if he discovers how much wine I've allowed you. Indeed, he will skin me exposing your green ears to all our bawdy talk.

Rumíl protested vocally. He was, he assured them, old enough to hear their tales as well as to drink their wine. "I have no intention of repeating your mistakes, so 'tis a fine education you give me," he added cheekily. Orophin tugged sharply on the thick braid trailing down his impertinent brother's back before returning to the conversation.

"So what of you, Galion? We never hear of your dalliances, but I know you too well to believe you languish for want of attention."

The healer smiled slyly, cocking an eyebrow at Orophin. "You never hear of my dalliances because healers are known for their discretion."

"Yes," Taurnil piped up, "Unlike a certain warden who spends half of his nights slinking away from a certain vintner's daughter, and the other half of his nights slinking away from a certain farrier's daughter!"

Orophin, thoroughly bested, could do little but blush and bear the chafing as Taurnil raised his wine in toast. "To Alquonís. May she never tire of Orophin's charms so that we may never find our cups dry!"

The laughter simmered down, old friends enjoying the ruddy languor in their veins, and the comfort of each other's company. Orophin, however, was not content to let things lie.

"Truly, Galion... Is there no one you look upon with eyes for more than a few night's tumbling?"

Galion clenched his jaw. He prayed the wine hadn not sufficiently loosed Taurnil to the point of divulging confidences. To his relief, Taurnil cast his eyes away. It was Rumíl who pulled himself unsteadily to sitting and cuffed his brother on the back of the head.

"Are you perchance blind? He has eyes only for our brother!"

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, Rumíl realizing too late that he overspoke himself.

"Well, if Orophin had not noticed, then I can safely suppose no one else has," Galion japed to cover his embarrassment. "Thus I maintain at least a shred of my dignity."

Orophin rushed to dispel his friend's discomfort. "Haldir is far from chaste, Galion, and he has always marked you fair. He would not turn you away from his bed should you make your interest known."

Galion sighed and Orophin took note that Taurnil's eyes remained averted.

"If all I wanted was to warm his bed, I could have accomplished that long ago"

Orophin looked pained on behalf of both his friend and his brother. "Haldir is besotted with the Marchwarden far more than is wise. Of all the elves in the realm, why do you choose to withhold your favors from all but my misguided brother?"

"It is not my favors I withhold, only my heart. And it is for that very reason that nothing of this will ever be spoken of outside this company."

"What will never be spoken of outside of this company?"

Haldir's tall shadow spilled across the floorboards. The mouths of the cabal slammed shut like steel traps.

"As you heard, _muindor_, we will not speak of it outside our company, and since you have arrived so late, you find yourself outside." The collective sigh was slight but audible. It was the first sensible thing Rumíl had spoken all evening.

Haldir eyed them wryly, despite a sharp twinge of exclusion, and threw his dirty tunic at the youngest thorn in his side. "Keep your secrets, then. I am going to bathe."

Galion's stomach clenched miserably upon seeing the evidence of enthusiastic suckling on Haldir's neck. He hastily stood and stretched. "It is late. I should take my leave." He offered a glib smile and disappeared out the door. The abruptness of his exit was not lost on Orophin, who surreptitiously glanced to see if it had registered on Taurnil face as well. It had. He watched the archer's eyes follow the healer's back and stay poised there long after the his lithe frame vanished from sight.

"And what of you, Taurnil?" Orophin carefully queried.

"What of me?"

"Where does your heart lie?"

He smiled as he always did, though his eyes betrayed him. "I think you know."

"Yet you say nothing. You tend your feelings in silence..."

"...And in silence shall they remain. It would not do to burden him with something he cannot requite. He most of all would understand I do not wish to know myself second in his affections."

"So you will both doom yourselves to silence."

Taurnil thought on this for a moment, and his smile brightened slightly. "No. We doom ourselves to hope."


	8. Chapter 8

**Lothlorien, Third Age, 15**

Even had the elves not tread light as eiderdown on the pale young shoots pushing forth through the blanket of fallen leaves, the rushing lay of the Celebrant would have muted their steps. Down it flowed from the Mirrormere to meet the Anduin, almost shouting in its haste to reach the sea.

Haldir and the Marchwarden followed the river's course, as they had for some days now, from the rise of the sun. They reached the main camp of the South Marches, nestled in a thick weald halfway between the mouth of the Celebrant and the green angle where it met the Anduin, just as the sun slipped behind the peaks of Hithaeglir. Their arrival coincided with the changing of the guard, the day watch greeting their counterparts as they were relieved of their duty. Tathalion strode to greet his fellow and Haldir scanned the far bank, enjoying the familiarity of the territory. Long had he walked these borderlands, and the patrol they now encountered was the very same on which he had long served.

Over the river, Orophin stepped out from the treeline and crossed to the sloping bank to receive the hithlain rope tossed across the frigid waters. With the rest of the day watch following close behind, he scampered with ease across the thin line to the awaiting embrace of his brother. They were glad for the day or two they would have together; after that, this company would be relieved and Orophin would return home while Haldir and Elemmakil continued their tour of the borders. They were likely not to see each other again for a few months more.

"Well met, brother mine! Was it fate or fortune that brought you here at the same moment the cooking fires were lit?"

Haldir laughed heartily. "I would have told you fortune ere I saw Taurnil manning the fires. Now I see it is cruel fate!"

Taurnil looked up from the deer he was dressing and feigned a wounded face. Beside him, Algamir, a lanky, pale-haired Galadhrim, stirred a large pot of stew. Haldir's mouth watered at the sight. The pair had eaten well enough on their tour: venison and quail, occasionally cony, supplemented with waybread and dried fruits, but it was a pleasure to reach one of the larger camps and take more savory fare. Algamir smiled coyly at Haldir over the vessel's rising steam, and found his smile met with a speculatively raised eyebrow. The elf quickly turned his flushed face back to his cooking.

Over their meal, Orophin observed with wry amusement as his brother's flirtation with Algamir grew bolder. The erstwhile blushing archer, fortified by the meal he had cooked, now eyed Haldir with an expression evincing a very different sort of hunger. After one particularly blatant exchange of glances, Orophin snorted scornfully.

"Wherefore such keen interest in a mere archer when you have so long been at the beck and call of the one you hold in greatest esteem?" he teased. "You would treat with another under his very nose? Did you toil to capture his attentions only to tire of them?"

Haldir's face darkened as he shot his brother a warning look. "'Tis the toil I tire of, not the attentions."

Over the intervening years, these wide patrols had become to Haldir both bane and boon: on one hand, he received in the months they covered the borders the Marchwarden's undivided attention. They sparred, sometimes fiercely but often simply for the pure pleasure of it, they hunted, they talked long into the night. Taken into his captain's confidence, he had learned much about Lorien's defenses, from the gates laying in wait on the Anduin's muddy floor which could be drawn up to rend the hulls of approaching vessels, to the spike-lined pits dug just beyond the eaves of the wood which would capture the unwary invader. Elemmakil taught him warcraft and strategy, and his hand-to-hand skills now approached the best in the realm, the result of heavy tutoring along the way in grappling and knifework.

Yet Elemmakil rarely deepened his attentions beyond that a teacher might give his prize pupil. Haldir understood the necessity of discretion when they met up with the patrols. He never questioned nor decried his captain's desire to keep his private life quiet—though his dealings with the Marchwarden had become, over the years, known to more than a few of their number. But even on the nights that found them in the deep woods quite alone, no intimacy was ever initiated by Elemmakil, and when initiated by Haldir, it was gently rebuffed. He felt often like an over-eager pup, performing trick after trick, hoping with a desperation bordering on servility in its worst moments for a soft look, an embrace, or the comforting heat of a strong, rough hand clasping the back of his neck. Sometimes, and tonight was one, the distance the captain kept between them pushed him to the edge of his forbearance.

Haldir's relationship with the Marchwarden had long been a bewilderment to Orophin. His brother was not without admirers, Orophin mused as Galion's face came to mind, they numbered even among those he held dearest. Yet Haldir remained besotted with the one elf who strove to keep their relationship not only clandestine, but ambiguous, admitting freely that he would not offer Haldir exclusivity.

"I cannot understand the appeal of courting one who refuses to be courted. I have respect in the utmost for the Marchwarden as our captain, but you leave me hard-pressed to enumerate his merits as a lover when after years on end he has no more interest in gaining your fidelity or making known his regard than he ever has."

Haldir glowered crossly. It was not the first time Orophin had made his feelings on the matter known, and it made him hostile. He was no child to be lambasted for his choices and he owed no explanation, not even to a brother. Secretly, he owned that Orophin's words plagued him because they ran too true.

"When, _muindor_, you have grasped the meaning of constancy for yourself, only then will I take your arguments into account," he retorted sharply. "For I am certain Alquanís would have her say regarding your constancy." He bent his head over his bowl and finished his meal sulkily. He had not intended his words to be so barbed, but there was nothing for it now.

Orophin frowned. "'Tis only your happiness I seek, Haldir." He spoke no more, letting his eye silently follow the volley of acquisitive looks sent back and forth across the camp.

* * *

The Marchwarden, sitting with Tathalion well away from the younger elves, did not fail to mark the exchange, and his jealousy surprised and shamed him. Had he not kept Haldir at bay at every opportunity? Discouraged him from attaching to their couplings anything more weighty than mere physical release and the companionship of a brother-in-arms? He often insisted the archer look elsewhere for his entertainment. Why, then, did it chafe him when the archer did just that?

His vexation followed him into the night, hummed like a fly at his ear. When Tathalion relieved him from his watch, he did not take to his pallet, but sought the guard talan Haldir shared with his brother and Taurnil. He stole up the ladder with practiced stealth, unnoticed by all except Tathalion, who tactfully looked away. He readied himself to find the archer's bedroll empty, yet there he was, curled on his side with a loose fist tucked under his chin. No, Elemmakil sighed, partly in relief and partly in inexplicable irritation, his trifling had been merely for show, a none too subtle declaration of his neglect.

_And I have neglected him. But I cannot have him depend on me for affection. I brought him with me to teach him, not to bed him. He knows this. It was discussed._

He lingered for a moment, watching the undulations of breath like waves rocking rhythmically against a shore, the pale and placid face filigreed in shadow. He had savored the rare moments he had ever observed Ecthelion thus, untroubled in repose, the only times he ever saw his lover off his guard. _No. Do not think on it. _For a moment, the cornsilk hair falling across the rolled pillow of a grey cloak turned inky as a raven's wing, the unseeing blue eyes paling to stormy grey. He closed his eyes and shook off the vicious illusion. Once, memory had been his enemy and he fought the torment of anything that reminded him of that time, anything that reminded him of Ecthelion. An age had passed, blunting the bleeding edge of recollection, tempering it into something almost warm, almost a comfort. But now it had evolved again, once sweet reminders emerging with new teeth, emerging as… as what? A taunt? A warning? He tamped the image back, willed its retreat to its well-guarded chamber, removing to his own pallet where he knew he would find no rest.

* * *

Bending down, Taurnil grabbed the orc's feet and helped Haldir heave it's carcass on the growing pile. The elves' faces were bent in grim scowls; the debased creatures appeared all the more foul juxtaposed against their pristine land.

The appearance of goblins nearing Lorien in this area marked a disturbing turn of events; the southern border had long been quiet and secure. Trouble came in the main from the Hithaeglir in the Northwest and from the Wilderland over the Anduin. But the small sortie was merely a diversion to distract from an attempt to cross the river further to the east near where it converged with the Anduin. Tathalion had taken as many men as he could spare to join the patrols at the confluence while Elemmakil held back the rest nearer to the camp as a second line of defense.

Had the assault come from across the Anduin, the elves could have turned to the war engines to sink their crafts, but they had no such defenses on the Celebrant; there had never been need for them. Though the arrows of the Galadhrim dispatched many, they could do nothing against the heavy pontoons, and the goblins came ever closer to crossing the river. Three elves had been lowered into the river on ropes to cut loose the barges. They succeeded, the makeshift bridges ripped away in the speeding current, but the victory came at the cost of their lives. Two bodies had been recovered, pulled to shore with black bolts protruding from their backs. The third was beyond reach. His line had been slashed and his body taken by the river.

The damage was now being assessed and the byre were set aflame, a plain signal to any who might still be lurking that the another attempt to breech Lorien's borders was at their folly. Orophin and Haldir marked from their position on the Celebrant's far side Tathalion staggering back to the camp, and Elemmakil rushing to him. By the time the brethren crossed back over the frigid water, Elemmakil had disappeared with Tathalion into the dark sanctuary of the woods.

Those with Haldir and Orophin on the borderlands had fared well, some superficial wounds, but no serious injury or loss of life. When they returned to camp and heard tell of how the rest fared, the brothers blanched. Never had so many on their own company been lost in one skirmish. The safety of the area had long been taken for granted; to lose three there so quickly was bitter as gall. Haldir slipped his hand into his brother's and gripped it tight, feeling Orophin return his clasp. All these elves were well known to them. All had served on this patrol for many years. To return to waiting friends and families less three men was a sorrowful task.

After a time, Elemmakil emerged from the woods with Tathalion, still shaken and wan. The elder Marchwarden stayed at his side as guardians made their reports and the bitter harvest of the brief but painful battle was cleared away.

* * *

The first glow of dawn was upon them before Haldir and Elemmakil had an opportunity to speak. Haldir followed him as he left the camp and ventured out into the forest for a moment of solitude. Relief slackened Elemmakil's face as he marked Haldir's approach. Though he knew no harm had befallen the archer, it eased him to assay his companion's state with his own eyes. But his most pressing concern was Tathalion, who remained steeped in anguish. It was the first time any had died under his command.

Haldir ached for Tathalion's plight. "It was not his fault! The bridges had to be broken, and the Celebrant is swift and cold. There was nothing else to be done."

"He understands, but understanding does not allay guilt. It is a captain's burden to carry the deaths of every man he loses. I bear many upon my back, and it is ever an onus. I can recall the name of each warrior I have lost, and I can tell you how each one fell. I have not the heart to tell Tathalion 'tis only the beginning of a long tally."

Nor did he have the heart to tell him the loss never grew tolerable, never ceased to drive a spike through a warrior's heart or lessened the crippling sense of responsibility. But that first loss held a particularly poignant pain and sense of failure. And in the face of failure, Tathalion would doubtless relive the episode again and again in his mind, seeking some arbitrary decision, some fateful detail overlooked, which might have turned the tide. Likely, he would thrash himself with it until his memory was ripped raw like flayed skin. So it had been for Elemmakil.

"Guilt and grief twist strange tales in the mind. 'Twas I who first beheld Tuor and Voronwë on the Orfalch Echor. My orders had been strict and clear: capture any elf and kill any other who approached the Gate of Wood lest the location of our stronghold be revealed. Voronwë had been my friend of old, ere Turgon sent him on his errand, and I was furious that he would set me thus cruelly between the law and my friendship."

The mortal claimed to carry a message for the King from Ulmo himself. A mortal carrying the word of the Valar! Elemmakil had thought to shoot him on impertinence alone. Yet rather than slay him, he brought the pair to Ecthelion, his captain, to judge. For uncounted years after the fall, he had castigated myself, thinking that had he only done the duty with which he had been charged, or at the very least denied them entry, the Hidden City would still stand.

Haldir was incredulous at this admission. "It would have changed nothing! The Valar will not be gainsaid. 'Twas not Tuor's coming that wrought the realm's fall, but Maeglin's betrayal and Turgon's refusal to heed the word of Ulmo."

"Of course. I did not say I spoke in truth or with sound reasoning. The doom of Gondolin was set ere its foundation stones were even laid." His eyes, adamantine now in both their color and gaze, panned through the darkness of the trees, fixing on some distant point. "Perhaps in imagining that my actions could have altered that doom, I was simply pretending I was more than just a leaf carried helplessly on fate's currents."

Haldir nodded grimly. When Guilin fell, Orophin laid the deed at his own feet, believing in the fever of his bereavement that had he not been lying injured, he could have in some fashion averted his father's fall, and no words from Haldir could change his mind until his despair had run its course. Haldir laid a hand on his captain's shoulder, his thumb cautiously passing down Elemmakil's neck and over the knuckle of his spine, coming to rest there. Elemmakil drew in a deep breath, not looking at him but easing under his touch. One side of his mouth twisted in a sad semblance of a smile.

"I know better than to believe I can turn the tides of fate. Yet I find myself trying still."

* * *

The water was brisk, though not as deep or wild as the Celebrant, and just beneath its surface, all of Arda's colors reflected brightly on the backs of the salmon forging their way upstream. Haldir was excited as an elfling, proposing some ridiculous challenge involving catching a fish with their bare hands, the first to meet success relieved from cleaning and cooking it. Elemmakil imagined it would only serve to make them look fools, and wet, hungry ones at that, but Haldir would not be put off, and already he had abandoned his clothing and jumped into water that rose to his hips. Elemmakil admired his lean form with its lines hewn by warrior's craft as he moved with liquid grace through the stream, grasping at blurred shapes with determination disjointed by laughter. He was beautiful and perplexing, one moment pensive and remote, the next mirthfully stalking elusive, slippery prey. The longer Elemmakil stayed in his presence, the harder he had to fight to order his feelings. He knew Haldir desired more of him in both body and spirit, and it was becoming more and more difficult to resist the pull of his affections.

Haldir's smile emanated pure joy, and Elemmakil could refuse him nothing in that moment. He folded his clothes neatly next to Haldir's, which lay cast aside in a careless heap, and jumped into the water, surprised by the unexpected strength of the current.

After a few half-hearted grabs, Elemmakil stepped back and watched an irresistible opportunity present itself. Haldir was too busy snatching at fish to notice his captain sinking beneath the water. A hand clamped around his ankle and pulled him under. He sputtered to the surface with flailing arms.

"Foul! Foul! I demand satisfaction, Marchwarden of Lorien!"

Brighter still was his smile as he swiped the water from his eyes. Elemmakil felt it burn through him like a brand. _Elbereth, how deeply he affects me._ He shook off his maudlin thoughts as if they were beads of water clinging to his back.

"You shall claim recompense later. As it is, we are still without a meal."

It was Haldir, of course, who managed the first catch, diving forward, then breaking the surface a moment later with a writhing, wriggling body clasped to his chest. He tossed it awkwardly to the shore before it could slip his grasp and smiled smugly at his captain before hoisting himself up on the bank where the salmon futilely flopped. The late afternoon sun made rivulets glint like crystal as they coursed the length of his spine, riding the swell of his taut backside, clinging to his thighs. Elemmakil was glad the water's depth hid his body's swift reaction.

"That you will be cooking our dinner tonight in no way excuses you from making redress," Haldir teased archly, wringing the water from his hair, sunlight playing off his broad shoulders. "I believe I will take some rest in the meantime."

* * *

When the night waxed full, Haldir sought reparation for his dunking in exactly the manner Elemmakil expected, and for once, the Marchwarden set aside his celibacy. In its way, Elemmakil's horseplay had been tacitly understood by both to be an apology for repeatedly refusing him. Besides, after months traveling the borders, the Marchwarden's need had become as sharp as his companion's.

Yet in the wake of their tryst, Elemmakil noted again the vague consternation lingering in the corners of Haldir's eyes, the slight tensing of the brow signaling silent ruminations. The same tension alighted there, he remembered, after other couplings, and yet Haldir seemed no more disposed to share his thoughts now then he previously had. He ran his hand smoothly over the archer's flank, hoping to lure him out.

"What troubles you, Haldir?"

Haldir did not meet his eyes immediately, his thoughts still churning in his face as if the decision to speak his piece had not yet been made. At long last he began haltingly.

"You have… Is there a reason…" He sighed, exasperated at the unruliness of his tongue. "You have never sought to … to take me. For all the many times we have come together, we have never truly coupled."

Elemmakil regarded him curiously. "Is that what you desire? To be taken?"

Suddenly unsure of what, exactly, he wanted at all, and fearing to see mockery or disdain in Elemmakil's face, Haldir looked away. This discussion was desperately uncomfortable for him.

"You do not strike me as one who readily plays the sheath."

He blushed at being thus unmasked. The Marchwarden's assessment was true: he was not averse to submitting under the right circumstances, but it was more to his liking to master his partners. His desire to submit to the Marchwarden had less to do with his tastes in coupling and more—much more—to do with his desire to be claimed by Elemmakil in every sense of the word. The more his captain held him at bay and tormented him with the immutable boundaries of their relationship, the more he longed for the intimacy withheld from him. Time had cultivated his feelings for his captain into something greater than infatuation, despite Elemmakil's persistent use of words like _friend_ and _comrade_. He felt love. And being claimed by Elemmakil might mean his feelings were in some measure returned.

"I do not lay for others often, but I am not untried. I would submit gladly to you, were you to ask it."

"Yet I do not, and this troubles you."

Neither spoke for some time, Haldir growing visibly discomfited with every passing moment of the lingering silence. _You have made him believe himself unworthy_, Elemmakil rebuked himself. _You owe him an explanation, yet which one would you give him? Which truth will cause him the least harm?_ He gathered his thoughts closely before speaking.

"To surrender your body is not a thing to be done lightly, particularly if you are to lead others. To some, submission in any form heralds weakness, and that is something a leader cannot afford. If you were to find yourself leading a battalion made up of those you have lain under, how can you expect to win their confidence in full? They must know you as one firmly in control, one who commands at all times, even in his bed. I would have you consider my words carefully."

And Haldir did. There was some rhyme to it, he supposed. To claim or to submit as the whim took him had been a luxury of youth, and of partnering with those of equal station. But if he did someday take rank above his past lovers, he could understand why he might lose their confidence were he known to them as one who readily presented himself for the taking.

Yet this understanding didn't smother his desire to roll to his hands and knees for the Marchwarden. In truth, it seemed to him only fitting that a warrior might make an offering of himself to the one he served, mirroring the duty he fulfilled outside the bed. But he dared not say as much._ Do not importune him. It is his to decide, no matter how much you wish it._

So Haldir's pride was not assuaged; if anything, more confusion now roiled to the surface. Sensing this, Elemmakil rolled atop him, his hair throwing a dark curtain around their faces and his weight braced on his arms, making it impossible for Haldir to ignore his conciliatory regard.

"I have not tried to take you because I see you as an equal when we are together. As I said to you long ago, I do not ask what I will not offer in kind."

Even in the darkness, Elemmakil could read the emotion held in those blue eyes, the feelings brazenly exposed there, and it made his throat tighten sharply. He closed his own eyes against the pull of Haldir's heart and sought instead his lips, kissing him at first gently, and then insistently.

They came together again with scarce enough space between them for breath, legs tangling like roots, each finding the rhythm of his hand he knew pleased the other best. Elemmakil reached up now and then to stroke Haldir's cheek or to smooth back his hair, sharing his breath and the hungry heat of his mouth…any number of small gestures designed to simulate the intimacy the young archer had all but begged of him. When Haldir threw back his head with a choking cry and shuddered his release over Elemmakil's fist and against the hard planes of his stomach, Elemmakil encircled him in the warm berth of his arms until sleep claimed him. Haldir was glad for the uncharacteristic tenderness, even if he knew it was not the true emotion for which he hungered.

When Haldir slept, Elemmakil slipped out from his arms to take watch, pacing noiselessly with eyes alert, though his mind did not easily focus on his task. He had spoken truly; he was not one for deceit. Yet there had been much that had remained unspoken. Much that, even in his solitary vigil, he could not quite bring himself to acknowledge. He looked over the sleeping form as he had the night at the camp. The even breaths were interrupted by the sudden twitch of an arm, a soft sound somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. Haldir rolled over and stilled again and Elemmakil wondered where his dreams took him this night.

_Would you know, Guilinion, why else I cannot claim your body as ask me to? Do not fear that I lack the desire. Never that, lovely one. Indeed, my body aches to know yours fully; I am covetous of your deepest warmth. Yet should I take what you offer, I would be hard pressed to part with it. Or with you._

_Someday you will see the distance between us as a benevolent measure. I would see your heart spared, pen neth, as mine was not._

Revelations made him weary. The weight of his thoughts, the implacable burden of truths that pushed like unwanted weeds through to the surface of his mind, leached his body dry. He turned his head away, training his eyes deep into the woods, his breath rising up as fine white vapor in the chill of a spring night.


	9. Chapter 9

**3019 Third Age, 14 ****_Echuir_**

Twilight settled over the land, and in the darkening sky the Evenstar rose, though other stars were slow to reveal themselves, as if they would keep wrapped in the night-mantle of grief, hidden from the eyes of Elves and Men, casting deep shadows across the green places of the land.

Haldir had followed his Lord to the trees standing just beyond the girdling hedges of the glade. Strange, he thought, that the way to this place should appear to him so clearly now, found at the end of a simple pathway like any other, when ever before it had seemed veiled from prying eyes, sequestered from the view of all but the masters of this place and those they would summon.

The brook tripping down from the fountain sang and trilled, and for such a gay sound, Haldir liked it not at all; he remembered all to well the mordant laughter of the water. He felt the pang in his gut reminding him he had not eaten this day, save for the hunk of dark bread with which he had broken fast early that morning. He had been too overstrung to eat, too tightly wound by the knowledge of his mission to fill his stomach with anything other than the cold dread residing there already. Now that the time was upon him, he wished only to turn aside. His very presence here, bow in hand, profaned the glade, and brought the threat of bloodshed to a place where blood had once been willingly offered as covenant.

Celeborn was silent as a specter, moving with grace and stealth as he took his place on the broad branch of an oak whose leafy limbs stretched high above the hedgerow, affording a clear shot into the dell whilst offering concealment. His silver hair shone coldly in the dying light, a precursor to the moon not yet risen. Haldir moved further around the halo of trees to his own perch, and with an uneasy heart, he took his stance.

At length, the Lady appeared, tall and white and fair, and it seemed a great weariness sat upon her brow and her light was muted. Behind her, the Ringbearer and his companion followed on curious yet cautious feet. As she filled the basin and sent her breath across its silvery surface, Haldir shivered, for the memory of his own vision was still as vivid in his mind as if he had lived it in the flesh, and the brutality of it did not lessen with the recollection, but only grew. He turned his head but slightly to espy his Lord crouched on his branch, bow in hand but no arrow yet drawn, and if the Lady's face seemed weary, Celeborn's was nearly grey with sorrow, though the set of his features remained expressionless as a mask.

Samwise Gamgee stepped up to the basin and peered over the edge. After a few moments, his eyes widened and his mouth flew open, aghast at the tale now revealing itself to him, and he began to shout in anger about devilry run amok in the Shire.

_Oh, young Perian… it is not merely in the Shire that devilry works. You need only to turn your curly head to see the evil in your midst._

When the portly Halfling stepped away, Celeborn drew a bolt from his quiver and nocked it on the string, and Haldir did likewise. The Lady spoke kindly to Sam, and her words sang forth from her lips slowly and clearly.

"Remember the Mirror shows us many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them."

Haldir felt the incorporeal brush of her touch across his mind. The Lady knew he was there. She knew, then, of his task; knew the reason for his hidden presence. He wanted to weep. Yet it seemed to him in that moment that the distant touch was a caress. Of course she knew! What a fool was he to think otherwise. Celeborn did not undertake this awful charge in secrecy, but had sought her blessing in it and received it. She was speaking now, he understood, not only to the Halflings, but also to him, and with these words so darkly delivered, her crystalline blue gaze rose to the trees and locked with his, though he well knew he was deeply obscured by the cover of the leaves:

"The Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds."

The words sent a shudder through him, so ominous they felt to him. Her eyes returned to the Halflings, benevolent and wise. "Seeing is both good and perilous," she enjoined, and for good or ill, Frodo of the Shire stepped forward to the Mirror to face whatever horrors awaited him beneath its placid surface. Dire those images must have been indeed, for his whole body shook when at last the Mirror released him from its treacherous clutch, and a fine sheen of sweat stood out across his brow.

_So he has seen_, Celeborn thought grimly. _He knows the futility of his task. He has seen the Eye that seeks him, and will find him—find us all- anon._ His fingertips curled around his bowstring.

The Halfling brought out a slender chain from within his shirt and pulled it over his tousled head. A golden light glinted faintly from the ring that hung on its links. Haldir was surprised to see that it was so simple, so plain in its design. Frodo's voice was small and tremulous, but the Elf-Lord and his Marchwarden heard his words as if he shouted them with all his might.

"I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me."

Celeborn of Lorien drew back his bow. His hand did not tremble as he trained the shaft on the milk-pale skin of his wife's breast. Oh, that most beloved flesh! Her laughter rang out through the grove, and it was not a joyous sound but one of anguish.

"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask for what you offer. For many long years I pondered what I might do should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! It was brought within my grasp."

Galadriel's hand hovered over the Halfling's, and Haldir saw its slight tremor. Fingers that had seemed so warm and strong when he had held them within his own to deliver his pledge long ago now seemed painfully thin and delicate. Haldir pulled in a slow breath and took aim, sending a silent plea to the night sky and all who might be listening in that firmament that he would not need to loose his shot.

"You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night!"

And as she spoke, so she became. With the awesome violence of a summer storm, a blinding white light shot from Nenya's adamant stone, and she who bore that ring appeared before them now a thing of otherworldly and seductive beauty and ineffable potency, exquisite and horrible to behold.

Every hair on Haldir's body rose to standing, as if a lightning strike had sent its frisson through the air of the glade. But even so, he did not move, he did not breathe; he marveled, in fact, that it should be so easy… that the uncounted years of wielding this weapon would render the turning of it against a beloved friend a feat achieved with no more difficulty than to point it at an Orc, or to take down a fleeing bit of game. Should he not have found it harder to do this? The smell of leather curled in his nostrils from the well-worn tabs on his fingers, the string poised and anchored a hair's breadth from the corner of his mouth.

"I shall be stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"

Celeborn, too, held his aim steady. It would have been nothing at all to release now and speed that bolt to its target, so perfectly balanced was that string against his fingers, so much energy coiled and ready behind the white fletching of his arrow, irrevocable death pulling at his fingertips.

But Galadriel's hand fell away, and the light receded, and with it the awful vision of Nerwen the Dread and Fair until all that stood before them were two shivering Halflings and a wan and stately Elf-Lady with a beatific smile.

"I pass the test," she said, and there was as much melancholy in her voice as relief. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."

Haldir slid his arrow from the string and slipped it back into his quiver, his uneasiness corralled but not yet fled. His Lord had already unstrung his bow and sat unmoving, unblinking, on the limb with dark leaves dancing all around him in the slight breeze only now appearing, watching in silence.

"It was enough. In the end, it was enough," he whispered tautly, his eyes glittering with unfathomable emotion. Haldir was unsure if the remark had been addressed to him.

"What was, _híren_?"

Celeborn slowly turned his head to look upon the Marchwarden, his ageless face flickered first with pity, then with and concern and even disbelief, salted perhaps, by the smallest hint of anger.

"Her love for me. And mine for her."

* * *

**3019 Third Age, 36 ****_Echuir_**

The weeks following the departure of the Fellowship had swiftly turned. Haldir was glad to see the backs of them and guided them to the borders with much greater grace than he had afforded them on their advent. The return shortly thereafter of Mithrandir on the back of Gwaihir the Wind-Lord—the Grey Pilgrim now revealed as Gandalf the White—occasioned much joy in a time when there was little else to celebrate.

Yet though white was now the color of his beard and raiment, Gandalf brought a storm-crow's grey tidings and his wise eyes held great grief, though his news was nothing Celeborn and his Lady had not already surmised: The passage of the Fellowship had not gone unnoticed; Dol Guldur was marshalling its forces and the attack they feared was imminent. The Galadhrim would not be caught unawares; Celeborn and Haldir drew up their plans and sent a few trusted scouts to the North, West and South to see what other movements of the enemy they could discern; Caras Galadhon prepared to close its gates around its denizens. The wardens of the Golden Wood made ready for war.

Haldir had returned briefly to the _talan_ he now shared with a grieving Orophin, whose wife and vintner son had chosen to depart with a band of Elves who sought the shelter of the Blessed Realm. Their vineyards had been all but obliterated under Dol Guldur's last siege, and Alquonís could not bear to see it fall again. Bitterly, the little family had drunk the cup of parting, with Orophin promising to join them in Aman as soon as their battles were won. Haldir took note that they never once spoke of failure or loss, or of the possibility that Orophin might only return to them by way of the Halls of Mandos. All the same, Orophin was bereft at their departure, and Haldir knew no words to comfort him. The shadows beneath his eyes harkened back to the long road they walked together in their youth, returning fatherless from Mordor. Haldir felt shamed by inadequacy; he had known no words to assuage his brother's pangs then, either.

As a parting gift, Ethuilion, his dear nephew, had gifted him with a small wooden soldier, the very one Haldir had left for him in the little brush-fort by the laughing stream when he was but a babe. Time had worn him nearly smooth and his tiny bow had long ago broken away leaving him standing with an empty fist, but all the same it was a most precious gift, a memory of many childhoods, not only Ethuilion's but his own and Orophin's. Through all that growth and change, the little soldier reminded him that the woods remained. And on the morrow, he and his brothers would return to the borders and take up sword and bow to watch over the enduring forest and its folk until either victory or ruin came. Once the last of the wardens departed, the gates of the city would close for good, to open again only for peace or the direst need.

Feeling pensive and at loose ends, Haldir at last swallowed his pride and sought Galion. The healer had refused his visits thrice before and he had not made any further attempt at contact since the Fellowship had arrived.

His soul ached. The sense of loss, of emptiness in his heart and a muting of his very spirit, grew sharper each day, not lesser. Even if the healer would not deign to speak with him, perhaps the relentless ache within might abate, if only slightly, if only Haldir could see him, see that he was well. Oh, it was a stunning lie, for he knew he could not more look upon Galion without wishing to speak to him than he could look upon a fine bubbling spring and not yearn to taste of its waters.

He spied upon the _talan_ from a distance, wondering if the impudent scribe was within, coyly crowing his triumphant return to Galion's bed. The thought of it made him hot with anger, every muscle in his strapping frame tensing at the unwanted visions pervading his mind, and worse, the knowledge that if such were indeed the case, he had only himself to look to for the blame. He rallied, climbed the ladder, and when no response met his knocking, he let himself inside.

Empty. The _talan_ was empty.

The couch still stood, aye, and the table and chairs, and he could see the corner of the bed frame in the room beyond, but this place was no longer inhabited. Gone, the clothes from the wardrobe and the linens from the bed. Gone, too, the contents of the cabinets in the kitchen: no herbs, no wine, nor goblets, nor dishes. And most distressing of all, no books. Not a single tome remained on the shelves. No tiny chapbooks, no oversized histories… just a thin line of dust to mark where their bindings had stood upon the planks. The shelves that lined the length of the wall were utterly bare.

Bare, save only one thing: a round, grey river stone sat unwanted and alone on the otherwise empty shelves. He took it in his hands and stared, heartsick, for its abandonment meant only one thing: Galion was gone. He was gone, with no notice, with no word, without even the most perfunctory note to mark his departure. He lowered himself to the couch and simply stared at the floor. Was he such a black figure, then, that nigh a century of devoted loving and uncounted years of sworn brotherhood did not merit even the most curt of farewells? Had he behaved so abominably in their parting that Galion would indeed cut their bonds to the quick and leave the land of his birth without so much as a backward glance? Curse it, he had done no more than what was demanded of him! The Mirror had shown him no alternative!

All at once, the stew of loneliness and guilt and betrayal and remorse fused together within him in a white-hot alloy of rage. The sounds of despair clawing their way out of his chest rang out discordantly in the empty chamber. With a wounded roar, he leapt to his feet and hurled the rock as hard as he could and heard the vaguely satisfying crack as it broke through the latticework of the screen in the window and disappeared.

Later, Orophin, whose heart still grieved its own loss, offered only cold comfort and a half-hearted shrug.

"Come the morrow, Celeborn will employ you so entirely in his preparations that you will have little time to dwell."

Under the circumstances, it was all he could think to say.

* * *

**3019 Third Age, 40 ****_Echuir_**

Deep in the woods, the war drums echoed. The children of the forest would not walk to their fates in silence, and it seemed even the trees kept time, dipping their branches in cadence with the martial throb, the shadow of their leaves a shifting filigree on the fair faces of the Galadhrim who journeyed to the borders in the gilded light of dawn.

Haldir moved silently through the camp, surveying the men arrayed before him and beyond. They were an industrious lot, sharpening swords and hoisting barrels of arrows onto the archers' _telain_. Each kept to his task in palpable silence. Rúmil fletched arrows beside a small fire, using a broad stump for his table. Their eyes met and a faint smile played upon the younger's lips. The elder returned it, but his breath caught in his chest.

_Celeborn will make of me a kinslayer yet, when my orders send them to their death before this night is through. May their souls forgive me._

He stopped by Rúmil's side, watching his brother's nimble fingers sliding cropped feathers into precise groves, tying them down tightly. His heart crawled into his throat as he recalled the sound of his brother's dying screams. Even though that fate had been averted, he could not help but to remember what might have come to pass, and how it would have broken him; to see Rúmil here before him drove the full impact of it home. He wanted at that moment to be a brother rather than a marchwarden, and two impulses warred within him: to take Rúmil and clasp him to his chest, imploring him to stay alert and safe, to stay alive...and the need to remain firm, with eyes front and shoulders squared, showing his men the true deportment of a leader.

A compromise, then: He reached down and stroked the golden head, over-warm from the nearness of the flames. His brother shifted toward him, never looking up. Long, tapering fingers let a feather fall that they might reach up, clasp Haldir's hand, and bring it down to rest on his own strong shoulder in a silent gesture of trust and love. With his brother's head inclined against him, Haldir kept his eyes forward and his chin up, and felt the deepening of his resolve. Blood would be shed on Lorien's soil; of that he had no doubt. But the Galadhrim would prevail.

The sound of new voices prompted him to look behind toward the path where now a bevy of green cloaks could be seen. Laden down with heavy packs of herbs and salves and bandages, the healers had arrived. The clench of Haldir's stomach was instantaneous and severe. Though he knew the one he sought would not be counted in their number, he could not help but to scan their faces in search of Galion; his absence still somehow came as both a disappointment and a surprise.

When the Master Healer finished his briefing, the healers hefted their burdens and splintered away two by two, heading for their stations throughout the wood. As the last of them began to move toward the eastern road, Haldir blinked and turned away. Abruptly, he turned back again and stared hard at the lately departing pair.

"Galion."

The Elf turned slowly, weighed down as he was by his pack, and said nothing, regarding Haldir with eyes of hyaline grey shining with sorrows. Haldir's heart hammered in his chest.

"You…"

The healer maintained his silence. He inclined his head, though whether that small nod was an acknowledgement or greeting or some other gesture entirely, Haldir could not say. And then his partner called to him, and he turned and was gone down the leaf-lined path.

It was all Haldir could do not to follow.

* * *

**3019 Third Age, 41-42 ****_Echuir_**

"Look at them."

Across the Anduin, the armies of Dol Guldur were mustering. The black tower rose up from Amon Lanc like a barbarous phallus and the creatures that swarmed its base appeared as nothing if not an oily slick of noisome seed. The din of their shouts and howls for Elvish blood were audible even at this distance, as was the banging of their pikes against their shields. Haldir spied not only Yrch, but men, and even trolls and wargs. Eru only knew what other base and nameless creatures lurked in their ranks. The night, when it came, would rise clear beneath the imperfect circle of a moon just past full, but already, even under the auspice of a hazy late-day sun, an ill omen was in the air, every living creature on its guard, waiting.

"They show their numbers. They seek to cow us with their size."

Feredir's arms remained crossed over his torso. "And are we cowed?"

Haldir snorted. "They have numbers, but they must assault directly. They have no cover, no place to hide, unless they retreat to the Dark Tower. We have the trees, and they will keep us. We have archers that would rival Duilin's swallows, and our height and range will serve us well. And we, along with our superior skill, have also the Lady's wards to protect us."

_And we have Nenya's strength, so long as it holds. Would that I were at liberty to speak of it; it might hearten the men to know it now._

"They do not fear us, nor do they fear the Lady's magic."

"What is this?" Haldir laughed. "My own lieutenant doubts our strength? Let them come. Let them bring their malice. Lorien will break them on the Anduin's shores. They do not see our preparations; they think they will catch us unawares. Let them labor long under that illusion."

While the enemy shouted and cursed, the forces of Lorien were silent in their trees. No motion could be seen beyond the eaves. Had one stood at the foot of Dol Guldur and looked ahead to the West, only the treeline would they have seen. But within the woods, the wardens were ready. The archers had taken to their platforms, the pikers to their pits, and swordsmen marked the second line.

Feredir restively shifted his weight from foot to foot. "And what of the scouts? Have you heard word of what snares they lay for us elsewhere? You cannot believe they mean only to attack from the East."

Haldir angled his head toward his law-brother. "I have had no word yet. I know only that the East is where the bulk of their forces are gathered, and so for now it is on the East that I will fix my eyes. It will be a trying night, Feredir, make no mistake. But I cannot afford the luxury of doubt, nor can you. You have your own men to lead."

Feredir hissed out a sigh. "You have the right of it. I will gather them now and take them north of the Naith as you ordered. We will not be out of earshot of your patrol, and there will be no gaps in our lines. Not an inch of our borders will go unprotected, whether by ward or by sword. We learned that lesson hard from Tathalion's losses."

"Aye, we did. But in the Dark Days, we had not the Lady's strength to shield us. We are stronger. We are ready. This night is not that one."

A heavy sigh, and Feredir's arms dropped to his sides. "Nay, Captain. I fear this night is darker yet." He saluted the Marchwarden and turned away, jerking up the hood of his cloak as he walked.

Haldir refused to let Feredir's grim prediction unnerve him, not when Galion's unexpected appearance heartened him so. He stepped back into the trees and found a place where he might for a moment be alone. He pulled his sword from its sheath. His father had carried this blade to the very gates of Mordor. In Orophin's hands, it had dealt death in numbers too great to count. It served another son now, but the same cause. Freshly honed and oiled, it gleamed viciously in the moonlight. As he held it, he thought upon the words of his oath and silently recited them.

_By root and by star, by the blood in my veins, in the presence of Iluvatar, I, Haldir, Son of Guilin, take this sword for Lothlorien, that I might safeguard all that lies within her borders with all that I possess, even unto the sacrifice of my immortal life. Let that life be forfeit should I ever forsake this oath._

Renewed in spirit as his oath was renewed, he felt compelled to speak the words aloud.

"By root and by star, by the blood in my veins, in the presence of Iluvatar, I, Haldir, Son of Guilin, take this sword for Lothlorien…"

As he spoke, his blood came alive within him and he felt potent, indestructible. By the time he recited the closing words, his voice had soared to a shout.

"…Let that life be forfeit should I ever forsake this oath!"

He looked down upon the blade and saw now that the inscription writ upon the metal was glowing with a pale blue light. The sword seemed to hum in his hands, its innate power unleashed by its keeper's fervid declarations.

_Gurth a chyth-in-Lorien!_

He brandished it high above his head, feeling the beat of his heart fall into synch with the distant drums. Death to the foes of Lorien!

When Khamûl's savage shriek rent the twilight, bringing on the threshing tail of its mount an uncanny moment of silence, Haldir knew his hour had come.

* * *

The battle began not with a massive surge, but with three tar-blackened rafts riding the current of the Anduin.

"They seek to startle the snake by beating down the grass," Haldir grunted under his breath. This opening gambit was but a test to observe the Galadhrim's reactions and glean what they could about their defenses. Their actions now would determine the next move from Dol Guldur. The wardens at the point of the Naith scrambled to pull up the spike beds, but Haldir stayed them.

"Not yet. If they think the river unguarded, they will send a greater portion by water and we will reap a reward for our patience."

The Yrch landed their boats and, seeing no one to oppose them, made for the forest, howling with glee at the ease of their invasion. Those howls turned just as quickly to pain as the swordsmen stepped out of the shadows to cut them down one by one.

"Send a messenger to my Lord!" Haldir called to one of his men. If more ships were making ready up the Anduin, it would be a simple task to move armies over the river as well as down it, and an attack from the Gladden Fields would follow. Whether this night or in the nights to follow, they would be hit from the North as well as from the East.

In time, a greater fleet appeared, and not merely rafts but ships under sail, and only then did Haldir give the call to raise the spikes. It was as if Ulmo's own hand rose armored from the river's precipitous flow to rend the hulls of the advancing crafts and send the devious mariners into the deeps. The furious screams and splashes of the capsized rang out over the crack and crunch of splintering wood.

Meanwhile, the seething morass in the East had formed ranks and moved now toward the wood in formations like tortoise shells, with shield-bearers on all sides and even covering their heads. Like the creatures they emulated, they moved slowly, but were nearly impervious to the ranged weapons of the Wood, and Haldir warned the archers against wasting their shot until they came close enough for the Elves to see the narrow spaces left uncovered which afforded them a meager chance to take down a foe.

As the ships crashed against the barricades, mangled timber caught in the spikes and chains and likewise tangled the bodies of the drowned. When the cover of the archers afforded it, wardens with long pikes dashed to the water's edge and pushed free the accumulating debris so the Anduin would rush it away, but they could not clear the stoppage fast enough, and creatures who routinely cannibalized their fallen kin had no compunction about crossing a river on the corpses of their dead. When the well-armored clusters came nearer to the river, they did just that, the rear lines breaking away and making a run for the makeshift bridges. Though the archers picked them off with ease, their deaths only added mass to the obstruction and the lieutenants called for the spikes to be lowered once more.

Four of the gates descended easily enough, but the fifth was too clogged with bodies and wreckage to be moved, and one of the pikers sprinted out of the eaves to force it down by hand. Already, a line of Yrch had begun to move across. The warden looked at the approaching foemen and jumped onto the spike-gate with all his weight. It shuddered but did not fall. He jabbed his pike into a bloated black corpse wedged between the spikes and the shoreline, its gaping maw frozen wide in a death-scream. Many blows fell before the body was wrenched free, but the gate then collapsed immediately, sending the Yrch who had traversed half the span of the river into its flashing currents and away. The Elf, too, disappeared below the surface of the water and Haldir cursed. Some time later he would rejoice to find that the piker had managed to grab hold of a fistful of sailcloth that had caught up on the spikes and a keen-eyed comrade had spotted him flailing in the water and had thrown a line and hauled him out, exhausted and choking but very much alive.

The armored platoons that trod slowly over the impoverished soil eventually came to a halt along the river's edge, the front ranks parting to reveal crude onagers at the centers of their formation. These small siege engines each took four Yrch to crank the windlass.

"Balefire!"

Sweet Eru, the onagers would launch firepots into the wood! Curse Khamûl and his black soul! Balefire was all but impossible to extinguish, and the Lady's wards repelled only living things, not storms of fire pitched from the sky.

The Galadhrim let fly a round from the trees, but to limited effect, and no sooner had their arrows landed but the onagers kicked back mulishly and sent off a volley of their own, no fewer than three projectiles coming from every basket. One of the archers got off a shot as they flew, and the object popped wetly, landing with a squelching sound and forming a brackish puddle on the ground below. The rest sailed beyond them into the forest.

A warden leapt from a talan and darted off into the woods to discover what had been thrown, if not the dreaded balefire. A good distance away, he found it: a dark, translucent orb large enough to fill both his hands as he lifted it for examination. A queer black form writhed within and the Elf shuddered. He turned and called to his captain, his voice thick with revulsion.

"_Ungol_!"

These were not firepots, but eggs. Swollen, fetid eggs laid by the giant spiders infesting Mirkwood. Should they hatch and take up residence here, the Golden Wood would soon bear its own dark moniker.

"Find them all." Haldir's lips curled in disgust and he signaled for some of his men to join their comrade in his search for the malignant pearls. "Burn them."

* * *

Slowly, the night passed. He was infinitely grateful that their casualties were few, but no victory had been decisively claimed and Dol Guldur had not yet retreated. He felt poised, as he rode to the north marches, for some greater deed of malice. As yet, the enemy had merely circled and sniffed at their borders like a hungry cur; the great, toothy maw had yet to bear its fangs and sink them deep. Knowing this was but a tactic to keep them wary and unbalanced did little to alleviate his pervasive unease. Beneath him, his mount's long, rocking strides were so even and smooth he could almost forget how swiftly he traveled, and as the morning wore, he could see Feredir's patrol coming into view.

Night had not passed so easily in the North. Haldir felt the strange prickle on the back of his neck that told him he had crossed beyond the Lady's wards. A band of woodland stretched ahead before him, and the marshes of the _Loeg Ningloron_ spread out beyond. It was in this gap that Feredir's men had been set upon by wargs, werewolves, and bands of Yrch. Haldir kept all of his border guards beyond the wards; Galadriel's magic would be their final defense, not their first. He would not have her expend herself when her wardens were so desirous of proving their own skill and valor. But though all had proved that skill and valor in the night, many had not lived to see the dawn. Haldir closed his eyes and sent up a silent valediction when passing the line of Galadhrim lying sill and silent beneath the grey shrouds of their cloaks.

"They mean to charge, and soonest," Feredir briefed him as he approached. A large force had gathered on the wetlands: Wargs and riders, Yrch, and men Haldir recognized by their dress and weapons as Easterlings.

"Bring more of your archers here and we will drive them west," Haldir ordered.

The piercing cry and the slow flapping of opaque, leathery wings moved a foul wind over the Marchwarden and his lieutenant as the Shadow of the East descended before them.

"Tell your Bitch-Queen to surrender, Elf. You have no chance of holding." The thin rasp of the Wraith pierced keen as a lance-blade and carried a frigidity on his razor tongue that seemed to pierce the core of all unfortunate enough to hear it, but Haldir faced him down and returned his threat with contempt.

"Fly back to your roost, _snaga_. She will not surrender, nor will we."

"Then you shall perish!"

With a roar, the assembled host flew forward toward the wood.

"Arrows!"

A salvo sang from the trees and a many of the raiders on the eastern flank fell. Those who remained scrambled toward the western edge of the field.

"Again!"

Another round of white-fletched fury and another hit to the eastern side. The foemen bellowed and pressed further to the west as they charged. A more desperate cry suddenly resounded in the field as those who tried to evade the rain of arrows from the east sank into the marshes, and unable to run, turned themselves into perfect targets. High in the trees, Rúmil bantered with Orophin, wagering the tally of his dead would be greatest by the battle's end.

"The fleet fingers of youth are no match for the skilled eye of experience," Orophin pithily retorted, and an Easterling sank into the fen with one of the elder brother's bolts planted square between his eyes.

As the line of the enemy narrowed, Feredir called his charge and his swordsmen took the field, harrying the dark army in the foothills, a mighty mithril hammer of Elven make crashing against an anvil of Hithaeglir's unyielding stone. Those who did not fall to the blade fell to the arrows of the sons of Guilin and their brothers-in-arms. Those who escaped with their lives howled their thrashing as they fled south. The screech of Khamûl's fell beast sounded like a resounding curse cast upon them as the Black Easterling rose out of range of the archers and up, up, till he was naught but a spot of filth against the clearing sky.

* * *

Haldir reveled in their triumph, though it had come on a tide of Elvish blood. Yet while some had died, the casualties were not as grim as any had feared, and this gave the Galadhrim much hope.

"Khamûl has fled," the Marchwarden told Celeborn, and though his features were appropriately composed, the Lord of Lorien could see the pride lingering around a mouth that clearly wished to crow. Would that he did not need to be the bearer of cautious admonition now, for a moment of celebration would have been a boon to all.

"He has conceded nothing. He flies to Minas Tirith; the Lady has seen it. He has left two of his lieutenants behind and they will continue to wreak havoc in his stead. This is not over, not by any means. This was little more than a feint. I sense there is far, far worse to come, Haldir."

Haldir's sanguine mien faltered only for a moment. "I did not imagine our victory would be handed to us without hardship. 'Tis grim news for us, and worse, I imagine, for Gondor. Yet if the Black Easterling goes south, it is because Sauron has not yet claimed victory there, is it not? The Ringbearer may yet live."

Celeborn nodded, letting a glimmer of hope sparkle in his ancient eyes that were so often shuttered against anything other than cool impassivity. "Frodo may yet live."

* * *

The Marchwarden toured the provisional infirmaries at the border and mourned over the bodies of the fallen which were even now being prepared for transport back to Caras Galadhon; the gates of the city would be opened to them one last time. He would not be able to return with them and see their final honors, so he offered his own lament alone.

It was there among the healers that he found Galion tending to the wounds of one of Feredir's swordsmen who had been viciously slashed as they pressed the Yrch army into the mountains.

"A moment, healer, if you would." He hated resorting to rank to bully Galion into an audience, but his desperation had forced him to use all means at his disposal. Galion merely nodded and returned to his task.

Later, he stepped away, beyond the tents and pavilions, and Haldir followed him.

"I thought you had abandoned me." It was not an auspicious opening, and Haldir cursed his impatient tongue ere it even ceased its rash wagging. Galion made a harsh noise in response.

"You have no call to speak of abandonment, _mellon_." The cool appellation stung like a slap and echoed like the insult it was. After a moment, Galion's expression thawed.

"I tried to leave. Merciful Eru, but I tried!"

Haldir moved closer, but not so close that Galion would balk. "Your quarters were empty. Everything was gone, all of it. Except…"

He looked up and his face was a mask of misery. "Forgive me, Galion, I was so angry… I was furious that you would leave me without a word. I threw away the river stone. I could not bear to see it sit alone on those empty shelves, chastising me."

The corner of Galion's mouth edged slyly upward in the beginning of an arch retort. "Yes, the hole in my screens did not go unnoticed. Good thing the rock was small."

A sound of sudden anguish forced its way through the constriction in Haldir's throat. "It was the first thing I ever gave you! It was a child's declaration of love when he did not yet have the words to speak it, and I threw it away in anger!"

It was hard to say whether there was more pity or annoyance in the healer's expression. "It was merely a rock, Haldir. Search the ground below the _talan_ if it grieves you so much. It likely lies there still."

Haldir wanted to rail that Galion had missed the point entirely, but a glance at the healer's face told him to beware. He had indeed understood, but he wished not to speak of it. Chastened, Haldir cast his gaze back to the ground.

"Where do you stay, then, if your home stands empty? Where are your things?"

"My things are gone. I did not wish to delay the travelers by trying to sort out my own packs from theirs, so I returned only with what I carried and left the rest in Brethil's keeping."

"But your books!"

"Brethil, too, has achieved some passing skill in literacy," he quipped. "It seemed a fair exchange for his _talan_."

Haldir stiffened. "You stay in the scribe's home now."

"It is no longer his home; he has gone. It is my home now. It is small and close to the healing houses and it comes with no painful memories. Do not rebuke me, Haldir. Do not dare."

There was as much despondence and loneliness in his voice as anger, and this unduly gave Haldir hope.

"I do not! Not at all! How can I rebuke you when you returned for me?"

Galion turned with such sudden force that Haldir's arms reflexively started as if to fend off a blow.

"I did not return for _you_, Haldir!" Again, his face had gone cold and stark and unfamiliar. "I have my place in this battle, too, and I do not merely serve at your whim, Marchwarden." He left the glade quickly, and Haldir did not follow. The light in his heart that had gone undimmed since the end of the battle guttered and failed like a candle in the swift wind of Galion's departure.


	10. Chapter 10

Elemmakil spent many sleepless nights in consideration of Celeborn's proposition, and though it displeased him to admit it, the elf lord's advice was sage. Perhaps separation would remedy the situation; a long absence between them might be enough to break the hold of this infatuation.

_Infatuation. Would that it were only that,_ he thought grimly. But Haldir was young, he reasoned, his heart would soon mend and he would look back upon their time together as merely the folly of youth. His own heart would not be so quick to recover, though the fault lay solely with himself. _I should never have allowed him so close. Through all my relentless palaver on the matter, I have failed to heed my own counsel._

Celeborn's offer had been expedient on more than one count: Haldir would benefit greatly from the knowledge and experience travel would impart. Under other circumstances, the Marchwarden had no doubt Haldir would enjoy an opportunity to see other realms, and the wisdom and confidence gained serving in the company of one as acclaimed as Gildor Inglorion would be to Haldir's decided advantage in the future. Elemmakil held fast to these notions, as they were all that kept the gnashing teeth of guilt at bay.

The Marchwarden's weary eyes restlessly traversed the talan; his quarters had become stifling. Even high in the mallorn branches he felt the air too cloying and close. A walk would peradventure clear his head and reveal to him how he might broach the subject with Haldir. The conversation would be an unhappy one, to be sure, but it was one best held soonest. He rubbed his face roughly, as if the scouring pressure of his palms might disenthrall some hidden reserve of fortitude. It did not.

* * *

A melodic flow of song emanated gaily from the grove. No doubt the sons of Guilin gathered there now with their friends, clannish and insular as the young were wont to be, trading remarks that recalled private jests and reaffirmed their affinity with one another. Taurnil's voice rang forth loudest, trolling a bawdy song learned from one of the guardians who had travelled with Celeborn from Imladris, and though many voices wove together in the responding chorus of laughter, Elemmakil trained his ears to hear Haldir's voice alone, a distinct and silvery peal. His eyes fell shut as he conjured the smile that accompanied that sound, the head tossed back in carefree mirth, flaxen hair shaking down his back. He halted just beyond their notice and made ready to turn back the way he came: he did not wish to be the cause of that laughter's end. But then he stayed his retreat, desirous now for one chance to observe unnoticed the young ones in their leisure.

Haldir had ensconced himself between the mallorn roots, back snug up against the great tree's bole with the young healer Galion tucked tight beside him. Haldir rested his arm casually on his friend's upraised knee. Orophin reclined nearby, an old log carpeted in lichens cooling his back while Rúmil's slim frame stretched out before him, his head cushioned on his brother's thigh. Other bodies, less familiar to him, arranged themselves comfortably around their friends, applauding Taurnil as he pranced and minced for his audience, his song entering its final ribald verse.

Elemmakil's eyes stalked back to Haldir and the healer, marking the way they leaned into each other, whispering secrets, with the nonchalance of brothers. Or lovers? He wondered. No, he knew better: despite the Marchwarden's admonishments, Haldir had become virtually chaste outside his company. Though while he did not take the healer to bed, it was clearly not from lack of want on the healer's part: he had noticed long ago that the young Noldo kept his eyes ever on Haldir, as much with esteem as with desire, and he knew Haldir basked brightly in his friend's unwavering regard.

And that regard was currently painful for Elemmakil to behold, the heat of jealousy flaring inexplicably in his breast. Of a sudden, he wanted nothing more than Haldir freed from the other's lovelorn stare. More… he wanted to grab the healer by his scruff and remind him that it was _he_ who shared Haldir's bed, that it was _he_ who made young archer writhe and whimper beneath him, and that it was _he_ who, with a single word, could have Haldir on all fours and begging to be taken. He wanted to see the pain and humiliation those words would inflict upon the whelp.

He screwed his eyes shut, nostrils flaring, and composed himself. _Stop...This is utterly unworthy of you._ He knew why Galion needled him so; the lad's feelings for Haldir were writ plain on his face. _He galls you because you know he would give freely all that you withhold._

Yet though he could corral his jaundiced thoughts, he could not entirely conceal them. The uncomfortable burn of envy drove his desire to deal with the situation forthwith, this sudden lack of control an emphatic reminder that he had let this liaison carry on far too long. Better to speak now and be done with it. When he drew himself up to his most imposing height and strode into their midst, he could feel the healer's gaze pinning him, could sense the palpable tension radiating from his body, and he was glad of it.

"Haldir, I would speak with you at your convenience."

His voice was unusually stentorian, sounding foreign even to his own ears. Haldir looked upon him curiously and slipped his hand from the healer's leg.

"I will follow now, captain, if it please you."

The Marchwarden nodded crisply and turned from the grove. He did not need to look over his shoulder to know that Haldir followed, nor to know that young Galion's eyes were even at that moment boring holes into his back. It shamed him that this knowledge pleased him so.

* * *

The air between them was uncomfortably charged. Haldir knew something rested ill with the Marchwarden, though the elder elf was tight-lipped, and he filled the tense silence with falsely gladsome chatter, the distracted Marchwarden offering desultory nods and grunts in return. Having drawn Haldir forth from his friends, the wherewithal to begin this dreaded parley now eluded him, and all the words he sought crumbled to dust in his mouth.

Haldir glanced about the tidy room expectantly. The captain's new talan was as austere as his old quarters had been: his desk of dark wood dominated the space, its inlaid top obscured by assorted maps and scrolls and, incongruously, a book of poetry in the high tongue, of which Haldir knew little. Opposite the desk, a tall wardrobe concealed his clothes, grey woollen uniforms and casual attire as well as formal robes Haldir had never once seen him wear. A couple of sparsely populated bookshelves stood under an arched window. The only concession to comfort was the spacious bed with its gracefully curving headboard and finely woven counterpane. There were few personal touches: a tapestry depicting Vingilot on the waves adorning one wall… a small rendering in miniature of Caras Galadhon in a gilt frame, a gift from Amroth honoring some achievement or other, propped up on the desk, not yet hung… a finely carved wooden box sat alone atop one of the bookshelves.

It looked more like a barrack than a home, Haldir once noted. The Marchwarden had simply shrugged, his eyes far away. "Homes burn. I have here all I need."

Haldir paced to diffuse his nervousness, picking up a silver coin as he passed the bedside table. It was of Gondolin make. As mute as the Marchwarden kept regarding his life in Turgon's realm, Haldir was surprised to find he kept such a bauble. He rolled his fingers over the milled edge, noting the perfect details of the King's fountain on its face. It was heavy and cold in his fingers and he tossed it up in the air, his eyes following the fountain as it tumbled end over end towards his waiting palm, words learned by rote in his youth tumbling just as swiftly from his mouth.

"…And so perished the Lord of the Fountain, after fiery battle in cool waters."

The Marchwarden swiped the coin from its trajectory with a flash of his hand. Haldir flinched; he had not even seen him rise from his chair. He espied white-hot fury flickering in his captain's face as he clutched the coin tight in his fist. And then he was back on the other side of the room, standing before the bookcases with the dimming sun casting fiery trails in his hair as he interred the coin in the coffer. He kept his back turned for a long moment, fingers tracing the scrolling leafwork of the lid. Haldir blushed, his heart pounding; he knew not what he had done, but he knew he had gravely trespassed.

When at last the Marchwarden turned, he had regained his usual impassive expression, though it did not sit easily on his face. Haldir's heart thundered still . Everything about this meeting had been strained and disconcerting, every step he took disastrous. But Elemmakil, at least, seemed at last to have found the words that had earlier escaped him.

"You have great potential, Haldir. I see a leader in you, and to develop that leader is not only my duty, it is my honor. Tathalion took his position under duress, and still harbors misgivings about his abilities. I would not have another successor falter in self-doubt when it is in my power to prepare him fully, as I have endeavored with you. Certainly, you have discerned this, have you not?"

"Aye, Sir!" Haldir responded with a conviction he did not quite feel. "But I fear I will never hold myself ready to assume the Marchwarden's mantle. Elbereth forefend it ever be asked of me!"

Elemmakil smiled bloodlessly. It was difficult to acknowledge that Haldir's elevation would be contingent upon his compatriot's death or his own, yet the uncertainties of a life at arms made it a necessary admission, however discomfiting. _Better he should be uncomfortable now than safely shielded from the likelihood that I or Tathalion shall fall and not primed for his task._

"You have walked the realm with me many times over and know its every leaf and branch. You have seen war in Mordor and returned. But you know little of the land around us. You have seen no other elven realm, nor ever had dealings with other races save on the battle plain."

He perched on the edge of his desk, pushing aside the papers there, hoping Haldir would not see that he gripped it tightly to steady himself. The look of anguish on Haldir's face as he detailed Celeborn's journey shook his resolve, but did not break it.

"You cannot mean to send me away! I have duties here, and my brothers..."

"Your duty is to your Captain, is it not?" Elemmakil's tone brooked no argument, though behind the voice there was little conviction. "Your brothers are more than well-equipped to manage their own lives, and will likely thrive on their own merits once they are out from under your daunting shadow."

Haldir's head swam. To be sent on an escort was one thing- that, he thought, might have come as a welcome adventure. But the Marchwarden was not speaking of a few moons or a season. He meant Haldir to be gone for years, traveling foreign lands with elves he did not know, far from everything familiar, from his brothers and friends, from his home. From Elemmakil himself.

"I... do not wish to be so long parted from you." His voice quavered, and he cursed himself for the weakness it conferred.

With great effort, Elemmakil stayed his hand from reaching out to Haldir's cheek, stayed his lips from reassuring Haldir he did not relish their parting, either, and bitterness seized him, born of the gall of swallowing words he could not speak. "It should please you well to know your friend Galion will travel with you as far as Imladris."

Haldir caught the venom in those words, and wondered at its cause. If any party was aggrieved, was it not he?

"Celeborn wishes to depart in a fortnight."

So soon? He would miss Rumil's begetting day. His brother would never forgive him; he felt heartsick. But every argument he presented was countered by one simple word: duty. His captain had called for his service, and no matter how he loathed it, he had little choice but to do as he was ordered. He surveyed the room again, felt for the first time in a long while its impersonal chill. How many nights had he sought his lover's arms here, or simply laid himself across the wide bed in silent invitation? Words whispered to him long ago haunted him now: _"Lay duty aside, pen neth… Here we serve only each other."_

No, duty was never truly laid aside, and only one of them was being served here. He stood stiffly at attention and asked his captain to be dismissed.

* * *

Haldir fought the constriction in his chest, the sinking pang in his stomach that made him feel childish and weak. He knew he should be honored that Lord Celeborn had asked for him specifically, that he was being entrusted with such a journey, and that Elemmakil saw such potential in him… yet none of these things lessened the ache of finding himself so unceremoniously cast aside. Despite all his talk of duty, Haldir could not shake the feeling that at the root of it all, Elemmakil simply wanted him gone.

He took to the woods, sidestepping the paths that might lead him to any other living soul, avoiding the glade altogether. He could not bear to look speak to anyone, to see the look of concern mixed with irritation on Orophin's face- Orophin had, of course, been right to counsel Haldir to hold his heart aloof. He did not want to chance seeing Galion's pity, to suffer Taurnil's attempts to lighten his mood with rude songs and feigned laughter, or worst of all, to encounter Feredir and endure his pernicious jeering.

He allowed his feet to lead him, his heart and mind too busy with other matters to mark where he roamed. Yet when he finally stopped to get his bearings he knew exactly where he had come.

A stand of birch and alder grew here, narrow and slim and pale. Blackberry bushes grew guarded by thorn and bramble, and a stream chattered gaily just beyond the trees. The bracken had grown like a canopy, creating dense walls that hid its far side from view. But peering between the thorns, one could see a thick carpet of moss, velvety and cool…a perfect hiding place. Haldir approached it slowly, almost reverently, as if to move too quickly might spook the shades of memory lingering here.

He crawled on hands and knees seeking the opening, and discovered it guarded still by a lone warden carved from a rowan branch. He still held his bow proudly, though the string had long since rotted away, and the wood was discolored from years of standing silent sentinel in all weather. He picked it up, marveling first to find it, and then to see that it was now barely larger than his palm. It had seemed much larger once. His father had carved it for Orophin, and it had been his brother's constant companion in that time when the years between their ages seemed an impassible chasm.

This place had been his place once, and Galion's. They had declared the land theirs, the trees here under their dominion, the small stream tumbling past to meet a larger current flowing only at their behest. When they outgrew it, they bequeathed it to Orophin and Taurnil. He wondered now if Orophin had ever shown it to Rúmil. No, he and his brother had been absent for much of Rúmil's youth. If Rúmil had hiding places, they were his alone, claimed in secrecy with the others who had been left behind.

He replaced the guardian at his gate. He belonged there now more than he had even when he was a living branch reaching from a tree. Peering in at the soft moss, he could almost see the two young bodies there, hear their voices. In that moment, to be alone with such specters as these was solace.

* * *

**Lothlorien, Second Age 3371**

"Be still! You'll frighten it!"

At twilight, by the edge of the stream, a doe nibbled delicately at the tender shoots in abundance there. Hearing the whispered admonition she craned her graceful neck, but sensed no danger. She knew a threat when she heard one, and what reached her ears now was no more than a fawn on two legs playing hunter. She turned her gentle face back to the stream, lapping at its cool bounty.

"You wouldn't know what to do with it even if you did hit it," Galion chided. "If I had not brought the oatcakes, we would have nothing but these berries to eat tonight."

"_Provender_. Marchwardens call their food _provender_."

An exasperated sigh. "_Provender_, then. Come eat your _provender_ before I eat it for you."

"Plague take you should you even try!" Haldir cried, dropping his small bow, the awkwardly fletched arrow still clinging to the string. He dashed to the brush fort where Galion sat spreading out their provisions and braced to make a flying tackle, but a vicious pain shot up through his foot. He stumbled to the ground with a yelp. A hawthorn had pierced his heel, breaking off and leaving its sharp tip behind. The doe bounded away.

Galion had ferried his friend to the stream on his back, though Haldir preferred to think himself too big now for anyone other than his _Ada_ to carry. In spite of his foot, he was happy. Since receiving permission to venture off alone and make camp overnight in the woods, Haldir and Galion took every opportunity to do so. In truth, they were not so very far from home, but well enough away that Haldir could imagine himself walking the marches like Beleg Cuthalion, keeping sharp watch over the wood with his sword-brother Túrin Turambar at his side. He took a deep breath as Galion paused to hike his weight further up on his waist. The damp of the woods mingled in Haldir's nostrils with the green scent of herbs suffusing Galion's hair after an afternoon spent rolling bandages with his _Naneth_ in the infirmary.

Gently, but with little grace, Galion deposited his burden at the stream's edge. The water tickled Haldir's ankle. After a time, he held it up for Galion's examination, and a few failed attempts later, his friend's fingernails finally found purchase on the thorn's edge and slowly eased it out of his heel. Galion had held it out to him in the failing light, a spike of so deep a purple it was almost black, and Haldir had prized it from his fingers, examining it closely, spying his blood on its dark surface. He dropped his foot back in the water, the sting and throb already beginning to recede.

The current eddied around a rock near the shore, the water parting and slipping past it. It looked almost like a turtle's head just breaking the surface. Such a small thing, yet it bent the course of the water around it and stood firm against a force seeking ceaselessly to move it. Haldir reached for it and found it filled his whole hand. Its cool weight and grey surface worn smooth by the constant caress of the stream felt right in his grip. He lay back on the mossy bank with his new treasure clutched to his chest, leaving his foot to trail in the brook, parting its flow like the stone. Galion pulled off his boots and did the same.

A tide of inexplicable wistfulness tugged at him and he turned his head and looked into his friend's grey eyes. "Will you always stay close by me, Galion?"

Galion knew well this reflective mood, how it overtook his friend from time to time, and the corners of his mouth turned up just a little. "When you are Marchwarden, you will stay at the borders as Beleg did in Doriath. As your _Ada_ does here. Perhaps you will go off to battle with him. I will be in the healing houses. We cannot be near each other all of the time."

Haldir considered this thoughtfully, but his face soon took on a determined set, brow furrowing as it did when he imparted something of great weight. "Then you must come with me if I go to battle. I will need you to heal me if I am injured."

Eventide cast ever-lengthening shadows across two young faces, and Galion's growing grin was half obscured in the gaining darkness. "I will go with you if you go to battle, then." Haldir gave a firm nod; the matter, it seemed, had been settled.

"Come," Galion sighed, rising and bending his withy body back in a deep stretch. "I am tired."

He pulled Haldir up by the hand, watching him balance gingerly on his sore foot. They stayed joined for a long moment, some wordless message passing between them like shared blood. Haldir impulsively pushed the river stone into Galion's hand. Galion said nothing, but smiled, his fingers curling around its girth.

They made their way slowly, Haldir slightly limping, back to their brush fort, and laid out their bedrolls. Haldir covered them both with a fur purloined from his father's oak chest and the night sky passed overhead, flecks of adamant winking in its black folds.

"I found Wilwarin," Haldir whispered.

Galion giggled. "Even an elfling can find Wilwarin. If you fancy yourself Beleg Cuthalion, you ought to know Menelmacar at least."

"'Twould be better named for Beleg than for Menelmacar," Haldir pouted. "The most valiant of all Marchwardens and we cannot see him in the sky!"

"Perhaps the friends of Marchwardens are fated for their own deeds," Galion sniffed. "Elbereth made Menelmacar to remind us of Túrin Turambar, for it is Túrin who will face Melkor at the Last Battle, at the end of days. Though he was not a Marchwarden, he was no less worthy than Beleg."

"_Vainglory,_" Haldir harrumphed under his breath. "Oh, show me Menelmacar, then, you who know so much!"

Galion ignored the jibe and pointed his arm, slim and graceful, skyward, while Haldir moved nearer still, laying his head close at his friend's side that his eyes sight down that arm like the shaft of an arrow and follow his fingertip to the firmament.

"That star marks his head, and that one..." he brought his hand slightly down, "...Borgil, the ever-star, on his shoulder." Galion traced the arc of his girdle. "...Three stars for his shining belt, and three for his mighty sword."

Haldir softened. "I only see him when you show him to me."

A bashful smile played across Galion's lips. He was pleased to be needed, if only to guide Haldir's eyes across the stars. His arm fell to rest between them, the backs of their hands just touching, and they drifted off with no other words.

Sometime in the night, a marten darted out from his hollow, skittering up a nearby tree. The scrabbling of claws on bark woke Haldir with a start. He looked around wide-eyed, his heart fluttering like a sparrow's wing behind his ribs. Color flooded his cheeks; a poor Marchwarden he would be, spooking at noises in the dark. But then he felt Galion's hand slipping into his. Galion never teased, just offered his hand, his fingers never grasping or clutching, but resting there softly, and Haldir's fear left him, replaced with relief, and something else he could not quite name. It did not take long for sleep to find him again.

Notes: Wilwarin ("The Butterfly") is a W-shaped constellation placed in the sky by Varda (Elbereth) before the First Age. It likely corresponds to our constellation of Cassiopeia. Menelmacar is the elven constellation known to us as Orion. Borgil, "the ever-star," is Betelgeuse. Galion's description of why Elbereth created Menelmacar is paraphrased from The Silmarillion, 3, "Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor." In a completely unplanned and wonderfully fortuitous coincidence, I must point out that the translation for Menelmacar is roughly given as "Swordsman of the Sky," (Menel + Makil), while the translation for Elemmakil is roughly given as "Star-Sword" (Elen + Makil)... A bit of serendipitous foreshadowing for Haldir?! Extra-special thanks goes out to my Beta, Lady E, for all of her help on the astronomical portion of this chapter. I never would have discovered these connections without her research and input! Elina, you are a Shield-Maiden among Betas!


	11. Chapter 11

Rúmil's face, turned not quite in profile, caught the lantern light and its diffuse glow softened his cervine features. He still looked almost a child, though the day was nigh upon them that he would be counted a child no more. He stood at his window, feeling the caress of the night's breeze against his the back of his neck, silently regarding his eldest brother who hovered diffidently just inside the doorway.

"I am sorry, Rúmil. I had no choice in it. Please know I would rather be here with you."

He shrugged. He knew Haldir was sore aggrieved that he would miss his begetting day, the day he would at last come of age, but he could not entirely hide the fact that his brother's absence stung him, whether he had choice in it or no. It did not help matters that Feredir had sown discord between them, though Rúmil insisted- silently, in his own mind, at least—that he had not done so by design. In any case, things had not sat easily between them since. And now Haldir was departing for who could say how long. One part of him wished to run to his brother and beg him not to leave, while another wished to keep his peace, and by doing so punish Haldir for embarrassing him in front of an elf he found desirable, as well as for setting off on this adventure without him. In truth, 'twas being once again left behind that hurt him most.

Haldir's heart sank. He could think of no worse a parting of the ways than to take leave of his brother with conflict between them, and he had endeavored in every way he could think of to make amends. But on this, his final night in Lorien, the distance twixt them seemed to reach to the frigid Forodwaith and back. In a final appeal, he brought forth the silver token from his purse. If his clumsy words of reconciliation failed, perhaps the persistent presence of a girdle 'round his finger might in time soften his brother's disdain.

"I have a gift for you. I hope you will accept it, though it comes not on the proper day of your begetting. Will you have it, Rúmil?"

He reached out to his brother, uncurling one by one his long fingers to reveal the gleaming silver ring in his palm, the incandescence thrown off by flickering flame picking out the carved leaves about the band. Rúmil turned his head to look, a riot of emotion dancing over his face like shadows. He plucked the ring from Haldir's hand and held it up, his mouth falling open as he beheld the names of the brothers winding around the inmost circle; Haldir, Orophin and Rumil side by side in an eternal remembrance of their dissoluble bond.

"Muindor…it is beautiful. You gift me with something finer than I deserve."

Pride swelled Haldir's heart almost to breaking. "Know you whence your ring was begotten, little brother?" he asked quietly, his smile tender.

The eyes of Guilin's youngest son lit with wonder and gratitude as the realization came to him, along with a pang of self-reproof for his sullenness, and his tapered fingers caressed the metal reverently. He had been overawed at the sight of it, but as full comprehension of his gift's provenance dawned, his throat tightened almost beyond ability to speak. He turned away to the window, his words falling from his bowed head in a choked whisper as he slid the ring—a perfect fit—on his finger.

"_Ada _and _naneth_…their betrothal rings."

Haldir stepped up behind his brother, wrapping his arms tight around a frame no longer the withy-limbed figure of youth, but the tall, lean form of a soldier grown. He lay his cheek to his brother's, savoring the soft skin and the crest of sculptured bone beneath. Had Rúmil always been so winsome? Of the three, it had been Rúmil alone who carried their mother's fine-boned beauty; Haldir himself, as Orophin, had favored their father, heavier of build and with bolder features.

"They would be proud of you, Rúmil, proud of what you have become. Would you think it a condescension were I to say that I, too, am proud? That I could ask for no dearer a brother?"

With unexpected vehemence, Rúmil twisted in Haldir\'s arms to face him and threw his arms around the archer\'s broad chest, burying his face in the familiar crook of his neck, overstrung by the simultaneous rush of love for his brother, and contrition for his earlier peevishness.

"Nay, Haldir. 'Tis no condescension; I am heartened to hear you speak so. Things have not been well between us since..."

Haldir tightened his grip, cutting off his brother\'s words.

"Speak not of it, muindor. You are grown now, and your choices are your own. I would not have us part aggrieved."

Pulling back just far enough to behold his brother\'s eyes, a blue the color of tourmaline identical in shade to his own holding Faelas' gentle wisdom and Guilin\'s noble strength, Rúmil made no attempt to bar the tears that threatened to overspill their rims.

"I shall miss you terribly. Please promise your sojourns will not keep you too long away."

And as he had done long ago for Orophin, and as his father had doneever before for him, Haldir pressed a kiss to the tender skin of  
Rúmil's brow.

"I will come back to you," he said, "for I do not willingly part from you."

He harkened to Orophin's counsel and spoke naught else of Feredir. The silence between them was no longer fraught, but a warm, consoling blanket, a shroud of love and forgiveness, binding them together.

* * *

The mist hung low, a fine net stretched tree to tree to cradle cool morning air. The wan luminescence of dawn's early hours gave way incrementally to the golden light of true morning and all manner of creatures were astir in the woods, waking from their slumbers or foraging the day's first meal. Early risers performed their ablutions and met the day while their long-sleeping counterparts burrowed into their pillows, clinging to their slumber.

The sorrel destrier grunted indignantly and tossed her head as Haldir tightened the surcingle, tugging each of his packs to make sure they held tight. He mollified her with a gentle rub of her velvety muzzle. "Petulance does not become so lovely a lady," he teased. She whickered and half-heartedly nipped at his back when he turned aside.

The healers arrived together, trekking as a group from the houses of healing down to the stable. It was strange to see Galion strapped with a blade, as healers did not take up arms but under most dire need. Even on the Dagorlad, they had walked unarmed, for had the Alliance been repelled far enough for Mordor's armies to reach their tents, it would have signaled their fates sealed beyond hope of salvation by any sword or arrow. That their party could not go forth unarmed this day was a baleful reminder that  
the sacrifices made on that field had secured only ephemeral victory.

The Imladris guards had already mounted, their faces turned toward the pathway leading to the outer borders of the wood, and a dark horse stamped impatiently, shifting his weight from foot to foot, mirroring his rider's readiness to begin the homeward journey.

"Haldir…"

Pivoting at the whisper of his name, Haldir spied Elemmakil standing at the fringes of the group. His heart dropped into his stomach; he had been distraught by the possibility that the Marchwarden would let him depart without so much as a farewell, yet now that he had arrived to do just that, Haldir still felt a roiling in his gut. He swallowed hard and tried as best he could to present a face shuttered of any emotion.

Elemmakil's gaze faltered; he, too, had debated the wisdom of seeing the archer off, but in the end his strength faltered, and now he stood before his companion heart-sore and tongue-tied. Haldir was still wroth with him for sending him away, believing it an expedient means to put him aside, and he did not blame the warden for feeling thus, as he was not entirely mistaken. What Haldir failed to ken was that this decision grieved Elemmakil in equal measure.

He clasped Haldir's shoulder, gripping fast, as if to draw a sustaining memory from that final touch. Blue eyes met grey and thoughts unvoiced passed tentatively between them. It was all the Marchwarden could do not to throw decorum aside and pull Haldir into a crushing embrace. But he knew that would not be meet for more reasons than mere soldierly  
deportment.

"You will learn much… All these experiences will serve you well."

Haldir nodded tightly, but could not bring himself to speak.

"Travel safely, my friend."

_My friend_. Haldir's jaw twitched at the casual appellation and he choked back the misery strangling his chest as they parted. His face gave nothing away, but then, neither did the Marchwarden's. He roughly swung himself up on his horse's back, eager now to put as many leagues between him and the source of this hollow, twisting pain as he could, and soonest. Lost to his own umbrage, he did not see the stiffening of the Marchwarden's limbs, every muscle engaged in its fight not to jerk Haldir from his mount and countermand his mission.

Yet in the end, the Marchwarden stood down, and the company wheeled their horses 'round, the Imladris guards at their head, making their way out of the woods. As the hollered farewell of the wardens rang out to them from the marches, they turned away from Lothlorien and began their trek.

* * *

The first leg of their journey was the most grueling by far, into Hithaeglir and up the Dimril Stair. Even with warm weather sparing  
them the brunt of Caradhras\' foul temper, the climb was steep and treacherous, the tight, uneven paths through the mountain at times barely navigable. Nights were passed uncomfortably, with neither fire nor much sleep, and all the riders breathed a sigh of relief when the narrow Redhorn Pass finally gave way to the flat land below.

In the Second Age, the proud realm of Eregion had risen at the foot of the Misty Mountains where they now turned out their mounts to graze. This had been the realm Celeborn and his mate had settled, a land that had seen the rise of the Gwaith-i-Mirdain in whose forges were birthed the Rings of Power. Gone now were even the crumbling ruins of Ost-en-Edhel, every stone laid to waste by Sauron\'s dark forces long ago. Grass and low scrub reclaimed the earth where once a city fair as Tirion stood; only a crescent of great elms remained to show the careful work of elven hands.

"It is as if they had never been here," said Haldir, his voice pitched low in respect.

Celeborn straightened his spine, his face inscrutable and still as a statue. "The trees remember," he returned.

Keen eyes and steady hands had brought down game enough to feed the lot. After the meal, as Celeborn and the healers lingered about the fire, the guard gathered together, and after a moment, a loud groan arose from their number. Haldir soon returned, tossing a twig into the flames.

"Ausir and I pulled short sticks; we take second watch tonight."

Haldir preferred the first watch, finding it far easier to stay awake the long night through to his shift than to force sleep at an early hour only to be roughly woken after succumbing to its charms for what felt like mere moments. Galion offered to send him to sleep but Haldir shook his head. "After such arduous travels, sleep cannot be too far off for me."

Inside their tent, two bedrolls lay abreast beneath the peaked canvas roof. Haldir sank to his side, propping his head on his hand as Galion crawled in beside him. "I stumbled upon our old hiding place by the stream a few days past. I thought back to the time you pulled a thorn from my foot. You were healer even then."

Galion grinned, settling himself under the cloak now pressed into service as a blanket, the glow of recollected happiness alight in his face. Haldir looked at him thoughtfully now, cocking his head in his palm.

"When did you first realize that you had the healing gift? Do you remember?"

Galion remembered quite clearly. The memory alone was potent enough to change the fust of dry earth under his back to the verdancy of herbs and the tang of antiseptic, smells which had seemed right and familiar to him from the first time he knew them.

His mother had brought him to the healing houses as soon as he was old enough to keep out from underfoot. He felt at ease in the dim warmth of the resting rooms and in the sun-lit wards where those nearly recovered ended their recuperation. In those early years, he did little but toddle after her, tidying up and rolling bandages at her behest, occasionally measuring herbs and root powders under her watchful eye for mild simples and elixirs.

"Naneth brought me to the healing houses from the day I was old enough to keep out from underfoot. I did little but toddle after her, tidying up and rolling bandages, occasionally measuring herbs and root powders under her watchful eye."

Haldir grinned. "You told me they had named you 'Chief Bandage Roller.' You were quite proud of that." His grin became a chuckle. "I remember being quite put out that I had no such title of my own!"

"Had I known, I would have made you my assistant," Galion teased. "It would have made the time pass more quickly." As he pulled forth his recollections, his eyes took a far-away cast, narrowing as if to sharpen the focus of soft-edged visions.

"Then came the day of the elf with the broken leg, or so it was ever after dubbed in my mind. Little else I recall of that day, not the  
elf's identity nor the circumstances of his injury, only that his leg was broken and he was in great pain."

"He had been given a draught that he might sleep while my mother set the bone. She left me alone in the surgery for a time, and I could not take my eyes from him, from his leg. I was overwhelmed by the need to touch it. It was as if my hands acted of their own volition, drawn by his pain, while I could do naught but watch. When I touched him, a languid warmth settled over me… my entire body began to tingle."

Haldir's grin became a full-blown leer and Galion cuffed his head playfully. "Not in _that_ manner, knave! I can describe it only as something that felt..._right_. And it intensified the longer I touched, pulling me down and deep. It was as though I had become part of that leg, had seeped into the marrow of the bone, flowing like blood..."

"Incredible," Haldir said softly, jests put aside. He noted the line crossing his friend's brow. It appeared only when he was distraught or deeply focused.

"After a time, however, it became too much; the warmth eddied out of me and left a painful chill in its wake. I could see nothing...all was dark. I felt I was being torn out of myself, my very _fea_coming unmoored from my body. In an irrevocable moment, that singular bliss became absolute terror."

"I knew I had gone too far and needed to pull back, but my hands would not obey. They held fast as if bound to the leg by shackles of steel. I remember feeling utter dread coupled with a coldness the likes of which I hope I shall never again know… and then nothing. I slept for many days. My mother feared that I might not awaken, that I had drained myself too deeply."

Haldir squeezed his arm. "Did she ever tell you I came to sit with you each day? I did. I held your hand and begged you to wake. I even promised to give you the little knife my father had given me for my begetting day that year if you would open your eyes."

Color rose in Galion's cheeks, and Haldir was taken aback by the gratefulness and joy in his smile. The quiet that fell between them then seemed pregnant with some unspeakable import; a moment suspended with words balancing on the tips of tongues. Galion turned his face away and lightly coughed.

"You never gave me your knife."

A breath released, followed by a familiar, rakish waggling of eyebrows. "You had no recollection of my presence, let alone my promise. I didn't think you would miss it. Now finish your tale."

Galion sighed. "As you can see, my condition was not so grave as all that. All the same, I was bedfast and weak for some time. When I recovered, mother began to teach me the ways of healing with my hands, as I had clearly come into my gift with no ability to wield it properly. For years she allowed me only to assist her, and then only on the mildest of hurts, but I knew as surely as I would ever know anything that healing was my life's purpose." He paused for the space of a heartbeat, grey eyes finding blue, "And that knowledge had ever brought me joy."

Haldir brushed back a lock of dark hair that had shaken free of Galion's braid and skimmed along his jaw. "Your gift is a blessing."

"Aye, and a curse," Galion chuckled sadly, sinking to his back with his arm folded behind his head. "I also remember the day I learned that my skills were limited, indeed. You were there."

"Was I?"

The healer nodded, fixing his eye on a dirty smudge on the tent's sloping panels. "Orophin had found a fallen nestling. Its feathers had barely begun to come in…"

"…Ah, yes… now I recall. He was distraught. He wanted me to help it, which I could not, and we brought it to you."

The healer's smile was melancholy, recalling Orophin's shaking hands delivering the unfledged bird to his own, how he had felt its life leaving with each weak heart-flutter. "I tried… I did what my mother had taught me, what I had done with success before… but it was beyond my abilities. He was simply too young and too fragile. It devastated me, this realization that I could not mend all hurts no matter how deeply I wished it or how hard I tried." He turned his head and let his gaze fall pensively over Haldir's face, searching it, brow furrowed in recollected concern. "But worse by far was the feeling that I had failed you. I was so afraid I would see disappointment in your eyes."

"You have never failed me, _gwador_," Haldir reassured, surprised by his friend's candid admission. "Nor have you ever given me even barest cause for disappointment."

_No_, thought Galion bitterly, _your need for me has never been so great that I could cause you disappointment, has it? I have been there even when I was not bidden, and come running every time you called._

Haldir rolled close to press a kiss to Galion's cheek, bid him good night and slipped easily into reverie. Galion watched him for some time before he, too, drifted to sleep.

* * *

The days that followed were blessedly uneventful, save for one nightfall when a small pack of wolves set upon them, slinking down  
from the Hollin Ridge under the dim light of Ithil\'s crescent. Though the season was mild, the creatures were hollow-eyed and hungry, bones pressing up in sharp relief through their ragged coats. Their ravenous countenances in the midst of Lairë\'s bounty proved that beasts more fell than mere wolves lurked near, preying on the creatures that would ordinarily have sated this pack. Starvation made them desperate, and their desperation made them dangerous, though their small numbers were no match for the bows and blades of the elven company.

When they first appeared, a blur of fang and fur falling upon them as if by sorcery, the Imladris guards had circled tight around Lord  
Celeborn while Haldir turned to the healers and ordered them make haste into the woods and to stay until they were summoned. When the pack was put down and the healers retrieved, he feared Lord Celeborn would think him impertinent for shouting directives when it was the elf lord who not only held rank, but owned more experience in conflict than the rest of the company combined. But Celeborn would brook no apologies, praising Haldir's instinct to send his charges to safety. The archer\'s cheeks had burned crimson at Celeborn's praise.

That had been many days past, and though they maintained vigilance in both their journeying and their nightly camps, no other sign of malfeasance did they find. When the light began to fail on this most recent day, the Imladris guards chatted eagerly among themselves; they had made it far into the kingdom of Rhudaur, and by nightfall tomorrow, they would be returned to their beloved vale.

Haldir, too, found himself growing keen to see the famed realm. His mood had steadily improved as leagues opened between  
him and his reticent lover. During the long days he scanned the horizon curiously. The only time he had ever left the encircling boughs of Lothlorien had been to fight at his father's side, and his fear had cast a bleary pall over his vision. Returning from that abysmal journey, his thoughts had been overshadowed by grief at his father's loss, his burgeoning relationship with Elemmakil, and concern for Orophin; he had taken in little scenery, save the warming memory of a dark copse in Rohan's wilds where his battle-lust had been extinguished while his heart had been set alight. Once the initial sting of the Marchwarden's dismissal faded to a more tolerable ache, he allowed himself to let his senses be fully engaged by the journey, the pleasant scenery enhanced by the gaiety of the homeward-bound elves of the vale, and the camaraderie of his oldest friend.

Settling in for their last night of bivouacking, Haldir watched as Galion tidily laid out their pallets and tied down the tent-flaps with his neat-handed knots.

"I am glad for your company, Galion. I have been graced with it but little of late."

A wave of irritation swept over the healer. He quickly bade it pass as he shrugged with feigned nonchalance. It was his voice that betrayed him. "You have been otherwise engaged," he answered, more acid than he had intended.

Haldir was abashed. He knew Galion had misgivings about Elemmakil, though heretofore he sagely left it to Orophin to voice them rather than initiate strife between them: some words only a brother's tongue could deliver with impunity, and even so, bitterness had oftentimes sprung up between the brothers over this very issue. Yes, he was grateful for Galion's circumspection on the matter, but he was not so foolish to think his boon companion indifferent to it. The edge in his tone recalled a similar sharpness in Elemmakil's words the night he made known his plan to send Haldir abroad, the slight sneer that had colored the Marchwarden's usually warm baritone when he mentioned Galion would be numbered among the company. Was there some friction twixt his friend  
and his erstwhile lover of which he was unaware? At the moment, he was most certainly heedful Galion felt neglected, but this terse remark was likely as close to a true reproof as his loyal would put forth.

"My brothers oft remind me that I have become all but a passing shadow in our house. Besotment is at best a paltry excuse, I know, but it is all I can offer."

Galion stopped fussing with the tethers and snapped his head around to regard him with a look so exacting, his spine reflexively straightened in attention. "Do you love him, Haldir?"

Haldir looked away, suddenly discomfited by the intensity in Galion's adamantine eyes. He could not summon an answer quickly, and Galion's heart pounded hard in his chest during the excruciating silence.

"After a fashion, yes. As much as he will allow it."

"And is your love returned?"

"He says soldiers should not put stock in love. The cost is too dear when a life of warcraft oft leads the undying to death. He believes we should content ourselves with comradeship."

"_Comradeship_?" Galion sputtered. "Is that how he names it, when he leaves your heart to wither like fruit on the vine with no equitable return? Does his _comradeship _content you, Haldir? Do you find yourself fulfilled? For to me it seems a rather disappointing prospect."

Haldir flinched, shocked by the unexpected vehemence of Galion's retort. He was torn between agreeing with the healer's assessment and defending his lover's honor… though truth be told, such was his injury at being cast aside so readily that Haldir felt little compunction to second the Marchwarden, or to explain away the patent inequity of their relations. Even thinking of Elemmakil brought back the familiar and despised ache in his breast, the tight misery that made him feel childish and needy.

"Nay," Haldir sighed heavily. "It pains me fiercely, Galion." He rolled supine, head cradled by one of his packs, and blinked angrily. "It pains me that he cares so little for my company that he would put me from him for some unknown time without even allowing me a say in it."

Hearing the pain in his friend's voice was to feel a knifepoint pricking his own skin, and he silently excoriated himself for adding to his friend's unhappiness. How could the Marchwarden fail to return the ardor of such a true heart? Though a warrior of superlative valor, he was undeserving of Haldir's steadfast devotion. Emboldened by Haldir's confession, and noting that the days of distance from the Golden Wood had weakened the previously inexorable pull of the Marchwarden, Galion broke his long silence and told him as much. He rolled close and twined his finger around Haldir's loose forelock and tugged it gently.

"You know I seek not to pain you with my words. I would only have you consider that there are… others… who would hold your heart, and treasure it fully."

He leaned in then, drawing his fingertips softly over Haldir's cheek, and laid a fraternal kiss on his lips. But he did not withdraw. He kissed the archer again, and this time he lingered. When he came away, he watched Haldir's tongue skate quickly over his parting lips, wetting them. The sound of breathing seemed deafening in the tent's close confines, and he dared not move. Haldir's mouth was poised just slightly open. Was it an invitation? Could he know how beautiful he looked then, eyes closed, cornsilk hair slipping  
over his shoulders, slowly breathing in and out?

Galion returned one last time, daring his own tongue to follow the path Haldir's had taken, feeling the fullness and warmth of the archer's lips, the rough patch at one side where they had chapped in the rough wind of the mountain pass, and the pull of air as Haldir drew a breath and held it. After a suspended moment, Haldir's mouth opened further to allow his friend's tentative and tender exploration, the gentle curling of one tongue around another.

As Galion ended the kiss and retreated, his lips continued to move in a low litany of Quenyan words. Haldir started to speak but Galion's hand passed over his eyes and he was blanketed in darkness, tumbling headlong into the chasm of sleep.

Later, when Ausir shook him awake for his watch, he rubbed his eyes harshly, shuffling off the weighty cloak of charmed slumber. He wondered for a moment if he had only dreamed the kiss, and he looked to Galion, turned away on his side with his face half obscured by the cloak pulled up high around him.

He knew had dreamed nothing.

* * *

When Anor crested in the sky, the Lorien travelers and their Imladrin guides drew near to the Last Homely House, following the roar of the fleet-flowing Bruinen, across which lie a steep bank threaded with a winding path. Beyond, tall mountains climbed, shoulder above shoulder, and peak beyond peak, into the fading sky.

The bird-calls floating down from the rocky crags of the winding path were no mere warbles, but a call-and-response sung between the travelers and the hidden guardians of the valley realm, the former announcing their presence, and the latter acknowledging their arrival and granting safe passage. Haldir noted that the deeply cut valley, with its steep walls and swift rivers, was more easily defensible than Lothlorien. He wondered how heavily these tight-turning pathways were guarded.

Ausir grinned from ear to ear. Though he had enjoyed his stay in Lothlorien, Imladris was the home of his heart, and he was happy to return. He twisted on his mount to look back at Haldir.

"Look ahead. The bridge beyond is the only path across the water, and it is narrow enough that only one can cross at a time. Best to go on foot and lead the horses."

He was dismounting even as he spoke, eager to make his way over the narrow stone walkway. Celeborn grinned indulgently at his gleeful guardian and allowed him to pass over first. One by one, the Lorien party crossed over the bridge and walked with  
light steps toward the House of Elrond.

Notes:

For the purposes of this story, I am subscribing to the theory laid out in Unfinished Tales that Eregion was founded by Celeborn and Galadriel in the year 750 of the Second Age.

Some of my description of the arrival of the Lorien company in Rivendell is paraphrased from FotR, Book I, Ch 12, Flight to the Ford; and The Hobbit, Ch 3, A Short Rest.


	12. Chapter 12

Elrond Peredhel was peerless in the healing arts. The formidable strength and skill inherent in his blood as the scion of mighty lines

of man, elf, and maiar, had been rareified over ages through practical application. His hands coursed with raw power the likes of which could be found no more in Middle-Earth, save in the Lady of Light or Círdan the Shipwright. That his power had been further embellished by Vilya's presence on his finger was a secret known only to a select and taciturn few.

But it was not merely the Lord of Imladris' potency which made him a healer of great renown, it also was his vast knowledge of lore and science, and while he could not engender a healing gift in one in whom it was not innate, he could- and verily did- share the more mundane fruits of his studies with any who cared to partake of them. The healers of the Last Homely House, trained and guided by Elrond himself, could be said to have quaffed almost as deeply from the wells of learning as their lord, and were eminently qualified to impart his lessons.

Of particular interest to the elves of other realms was the skill of Rivendell's healers in identifying and combating the various permutations of poison devised by orcish warlords that remained a bane to the elves despite the Dark Lord's defeat. Great was the number of their kind fallen to a seemingly minor injury of bolt or blade due to the weapon's deadly taint.

The peredhel's mingled blood and his fosterage of Elendil's heirs – the latest charge had lately entered the third decade of his kingly reign- also vested in him an interest in the ailments of the Secondborn, and he knew curatives and treatments for many mortal illnesses which he endeavored to share, ever in the hope that the fellowship of all Elbereth's children might flourish.

It was these two things in the main which brought the healers from Lothlorien to study, and they wasted not a day in commencing their tutelage, rising with the dawn on the morning following their arrival to spend long hours in the Healing Halls.

With Galion and the others occupied, Haldir was left to his own devices, and spent his first days simply taking in his new surroundings and exploring the methodically arrayed grounds of the valley. Despite the pageantry of Elrond's stately gardens, he found himself drawn again and again to a smaller arbor tucked away off the main paths. It was ringed by linden trees and filled with niphredil, elanor, and alfirin, flowers that flourished in abundance among the mellyrn of Lothlorien. Unlike the larger gardens, the flowers here blossomed haphazardly, as if their seeds had been tossed about and bid to bloom where it pleased them, and it reminded Haldir of home. It was known to all as Celebrian's garden; though Celeborn's daughter had yet to formally betroth herself toRivendell's lord, this small plot, singing with the wild beauty of a land as precious to Celebrian as to her parents, made plain Elrond's desire to give his beloved something of Lothlorien in Imladris, that she might linger in his valley.

_Such love must be a wondrous thing_, Haldir mused, twirling a fallen linden leaf between his fingers.

It occurred to Haldir that the differences between the formal gardens of Imladris and the majestic wilds of Lothlorien reflected also the differences in their inhabitants: the Noldor of Rivendell were at once more formal in their bearing, whilst the Silvan peoples of the Golden Wood, and those Sindar and Noldor that settled there, were of a more elemental mien; not wilder, perhaps, but less restrained.

In truth, the Noldor at first made him uneasy, despite their excellent hospitality. Their accented speech and the casual usage of the High Tongue made him feel a desperately benighted rube. The only Golodhrim he had ever known were those like Galion and Elemmakil, refugees from fallen realms who had assimilated long ago to the ways of the Wood-elves and seemed almost as if they were born of Silvan blood.

These differences only heightened the feelings of homesickness he had tried desperately to ignore. Though he was both curious and guardedly excited about his coming adventures, he missed his home and his brothers. And in spite of himself, he missed Elemmakil, though the thought of him made his stomach wrench. When the Marchwarden's face cropped up unbidden in Haldir's mind, the squared jaw and deep-set grey eyes, he forced it out, replaced it with the more benign visage of Ausir or Galion or some other elf of similar coloring and less hurtful countenance.

Galion. That was another line of thought altogether! Had such feeling lain dormant in the healer's breast for long? If so, why had he never before broached them? It was not like Galion to keep secrets from him. It was confounding. Not that it was entirely unwelcome, he mentally amended. Galion was indeed pleasing to the eye, and there was none to whom he was more closely bound, save and Galion had ever been side by side, since the days their mothers had sat together, dandling them on their knees and lulling them with sweet songs. Even the vaunted Marchwarden could not claim similar intimacy, though he might have remedied that had he so chosen; what distance lay between them was not due to any withholding on Haldir's part. Yet though he and Galion were close as brothers, Haldir had not thought to cross that line lest his treasured friendship fall prey to the snares and pitfalls too often inherent in romantic relations. It would seem, however, if one night's precipitate actions were any indication, Galion thought otherwise.

It was a strange, yet not altogether discomfiting, to think of the one who had been with him since his earliest childhood days, his confidante and most loyal companion, as something quite different, and having been summarily banished by Elemmakil, he was greatly inclined to cast off his self-imposed constancy and seek the pleasure denied to him by the Marchwarden. Self-righteous spite fueled by wounded pride flickered like a snake's tongue in his breast. Well, if the Marchwarden spurned his favors, 'twas his own loss and another's gain.

So wrapped inside his disgruntled thoughts was he that he barely avoided a collision as he turned a corner to head back to the garrison. An elf of great stature and regal bearing stopped Haldir dead in his tracks. He seemed nearly to glow with some inner radiance; truly, he was one of the ancient ones.

"Pardon and well met, stranger!" The voice was commanding yet melodic, its keeper accustomed to making himself heard.

"Pardon is mine to beg, my lord," Haldir said with a deep bow of his head. "My mind strayed and my eyes, it seems, went with it."

The elf laughed merrily. "Let us count ourselves fortunate, then, that I had both my wits and eyes about me, lest we had suffered a very painful meeting of the minds! You arrived with Celeborn, did you not? Should I assume I am making the acquaintance of my latest companion?"

Confusion spelled itself plain over Haldir's face and the grand elf laughed again.

"You _are_ Haldir of Lothlorien, yes? I am Gildor Inglorion."

Haldir was mortified by his gaff, but Gildor waved off his stammering apology. "Titles and politesse sit ill with those who live rough. I hold with no formalities. Celeborn speaks highly of you, and my band will be glad for fresh blood; we have long tired of staring at each others' faces!"

Gildor walked with him to the garrison, amiably revealing the details of their impending departure. They would rest in the valley for a few days more and depart at the new moon that darkness might befriend them as they journeyed past the Trollshaws.

"Know you any of the tongues of men? The Common Speech, perchance? No matter: you will learn it, and others beside. You may even learn a few words from the Naugrim, though they guard their language jealously as they guard their jewels." He grinned broadly. "And what words they teach are rarely savory!"

Ausir approached them as they neared the archery lists and Gildor draped a fraternal arm around his shoulder.

"It is well you have a few days at home, friend. Celeborn tells me you nigh well exhausted your stock of salty songs on your ride hither, and I would have you replenish your stores ere we leave lest we be at an utter loss for entertainment!"

The younger elf waggled his eyebrows and promised he would prepare diligently.

Gildor took Haldir aside before departing, capturing the galadhel's shoulder in his broad hand. "Our path is taxing, and we face many dangers. You must be prepared for the worst at all times. Yet you will find, I think, that our band is a merry one, despite the hardships of travel."

When he excused himself and strode away across the practice yard, Haldir watched his receding figure with no small bit of awe. Having at last met the renowned Gildor Inglorion, and found him to be as gracious as he was skilled, the prospect of a long journey under his charge seemed now much less daunting.

He might, he considered with a crooked grin, even enjoy himself.

* * *

The hard soles of Haldir's boots clipped against the flagstones. From his window in the garrison, he had seen lights flickering in the healers' dormitory and hoped that Galion would not yet be abed. His final preparations had been completed; he left his pack leaning up against the bedstead and his weapons ready by the door. All that remained was to say farewell to his friend and force his anxious body to seek sleep; it would be, after all, his last night in a comfortable bed for the foreseeable future.

A light rap on the door brought a quiet summons from within, and Haldir entered to find Galion reading on his bed, back propped against the headboard. He was dressed for sleep in a light robe and linen pants, but the deep blue counterpane had not yet been turned down for the night. He looked up from his book as Haldir approached the bed.

"You are ready to leave, then?"

Haldir nodded. "We ride out at first light. Gildor hopes to have us clear of the Trollshaws by nightfall." His jaw was stiffly set, and though he had hooked his thumbs casually on his belt, Galion saw how they worried the leather beneath them. He slid over to make room on the bed, patting the plump mattress in invitation.

The warden let out his breath and slouched heavily to the bedside. The wood was still warm where Galion's back had rested. All the excitement cultivated over these last days had gone sallow when he stopped to consider just how long he might find himself parted from all that was familiar to him. His trepidation was evident in his face, and Galion felt his heart swell sympathetically.

"Yesterday, you could hardly wait to depart, yet tonight you quail. Wherefore this change?"

Haldir shrugged. "Gildor is affable, and the others as well, but I am not equal to their experience or knowledge, and neither am I a Noldo nor even a denizen of Imladris. I know not their ways or their expectations of me... I fear I shall be no more than dead weight to them."

Galion smiled kindly. _But_ _loneliness you fear most of all. For the first time in all your years you have not your father or your brothers or me at your side_. Without even looking, he knew Haldir's features were pinched with insecurity.

"Gildor would not have taken you on unless he believed you an asset to his party."

"Gildor would not have taken me on but for Lord Celeborn's insistence."

Galion's hand lit lightly on his thigh. "And Lord Celeborn would not have insisted unless he had faith in your skill. You are a worthy Celeborn knows that. Gildor knows that." He swallowed hard around the word, knowing Haldir needed to hear it. "Elemmakil knows that. Did he not say he saw the makings of a leader in you? Give yourself your due."

Haldir dropped his head, his face relaxing, pleased for the compliment and for the presence of his friend's hand. The warmth of the healer's palm turned his thoughts again to the Rhudaur plains, the memory of Galion's lips moving shyly against his. He covered Galion's hand with his own, interlacing their fingers and curling their hands together. Glancing at Galion, the healer's expression was indecipherable to him, his bright eyes fixed on their joined hands in what might just have easily been concern as curiosity.

It was Haldir this time who brought their lips together, a gentle kiss which hovered in some ambiguous realm between the fraternal and the amorous. It might have lingered there indefinitely had Haldir not shifted closer then, fingers reaching and curving to cup the back of his neck and draw him closer still. Haldir's lips nudged impatiently at his friend's mouth, and Galion opened fully to receive him. Their tongues met, danced, explored, first with hesitation and then with deepening languor. Galion sighed quietly, and with exquisite tenderness passed the backs of his fingers over the crest of Haldir's cheek, trailing down his neck with a feather-light touch before bringing his hand to rest upon the warden's chest, a warm pulse radiating from his palm.

Slipping down from Galion's neck, Haldir's hand passed through the gap between robe and skin and coursed slowly over the healer's collarbone, his breast, and down his side, the musclesbehind the ribs quivering beneath his splayed fingers. One pass over a nipple by a questing thumb was enough to draw it up tight. Not too many moments into these tentative explorations, his powerful hand having swept down over a quivering flank, up to bared throat and back down over the rangy torso, Haldir felt Galion's hand push against him. He knew immediately why: Galion's nightclothes did little to hide his arousal. Galion broke the kiss decisively, his body wracked with a shudder that danced up his spine and left him through his mouth, pulling a tremulous gasp with it. His face was flushed, though from arousal or embarrassment Haldir could not say until the healer dropped his gaze, his shoulders drooping and sending a fall of dark hair to curtain his face.

"That night at the camp... I overstepped myself. It was not meet of me. You need not reciprocate to save my feelings."

Haldir studied him for what felt an uncomfortable eternity, silently solving the tangle of his feelings.

_I_ _will be long away from any companionship. What harm is there in taking what a friend freely offers? 'Tis for certes more than my own lover would provide! If we find it not to our liking, we will be parted on the morrow and time will allow us to put it safely aside._

Breaking the silence, he said only this: "Let us have our farewell, Galion."

He pulled Galion closer, felt the hard heat of him pressed against his thigh. When his fingers teased the elf's straining erection through the fabric of his pants, Galion made a fraught sigh, the sound flashing like a bolt straight to his groin. He hurriedly cast off his tunic, afraid even the barest moment of stillness might bring them too abruptly to their senses, as if the magic between them was sustained only through perpetual motion; the garment slumped against the side of the bed like a fallen soldier.

Galion's face was aglow with awe as he traced the contours of Haldir's chest with a warm and reverent touch. Perhaps Haldir would have hesitated had he sensed the full measure of the healer's enchantment, but as it was, he was in thrall to the spiraling  
sensations and emotions at war in his own body and mind, arching his back and purring like a cat when Galion dipped his head and closed his mouth around a nipple. It was mindless pleasure, that tongue against his needy skin. He pulled Galion tight to him and when his hand slipped down to cup between his legs, Galion's hips rocked under his hand.

The remainder of their clothing soon lay on the floor, the rising heat between them rendering any covering an interminable nuisance. Silently, each marvelled at the strangeness of a known body yielding an unknown and enkindling touch. Haldir parted Galion's legs with his knee, felt the warm sac at their apex riding his thigh. He took his friend in hand, finding this part of his body a reflection of the rest- long, slim, and strong, yet strange in his palm. It had been some time since he had touched anyone but Elemmakil so intimately, and his movements felt clumsy as they ventured into this unfamiliar territory. He brushed off the niggling sense of disloyalty that intermittently reared in his mind.

_He did not want me. I have every right to seek comfort where I will_.

Thought was shaken from his head when Galion's fingers coaxed his hand away. He peered curiously through glazed and hooded eyes, groaning as Galion grasped their lengths together in his long-fingered hand and stroked them as one. The sight of it, the heat and friction, made him almost cry out in bliss. He wrapped Galion's hand with his own, tightening the healer's grip and moving his pace toward its peak.

Their rhythm grew more insistent, bodies pushing closer, tongues delving deeper to mimic the dance of hips and hands. Galion pulled away gasping, his breath harsh and wild. He buried his face in Haldir's neck and climaxed over their clasped hands, biting his lip against the cry that threatened to tear from his throat. His hand never lost its cadence, even in the throes of his own ecstasy, and it took but a few strokes more for Haldir's body to go rigid and cast seed against Galion's taut belly.

After a long, heavy moment, they rolled apart, eyes averted as they caught their breath. Their mingled essence, which had spread warmly between their bodies, now cooled on their skin as they held each other awkwardly, wondering at the spell that hadposessed them which seemed to dissipate now like a clearing fog.

Galion took it upon himself to break through the uneasy stillness with a fit of feigned mirth stifled against Haldir's shoulder.

"Well, _that_ was unexpected!"

At the sound of it, Haldir, too, began to laugh, the exhaled breath of relief. "For my part," he dissembled, for the first time ever unsure of the prudence of full disclosure, "I did not come here plotting your seduction. I really did come to say farewell."

Galion laughed with increased sincerity. "If this is how you make your farewells, it is a wonder you ever made it out of Lorien in the first place!"

At last, Haldir smiled wide, his body relaxing in his friend's embrace. His fears were allayed: Galion was still utterly and simply Galion. This little tryst had altered not one thing between them.

Later, after Haldir had bade him goodbye in earnest, Galion lay awake in his bed, watching night pass over the valley outside his window, and hope stirred in his breast. Stirred, and bloomed. The spell of the Marchwarden had been broken. Galion had bared his feelings to Haldir and received, despite all his fears, some measure of reciprocity. His body was still alive with the lingering memory of Haldir's touch, and his heart beat with the thrill of infinite possibility. He searched the sky for the shining presence of Menelmacar and sent a whispered prayer to Elbereth to keep his beloved one safe on his journeys, and to guide him safely back to Lorien at their end.

* * *

At break of day, Gildor Inglorion and his wandering company wended their way up the narrow path from the Last Homely House to the wilds of Eriador beyond. Haldir's misgivings had flown, bolstered by Galion's attentions and replaced by a growing anticipation of adventure. Before the valley retreat slipped out of sight, he twisted on his mount and took one final look back. Had he cast his eyes toward the garden path coming down from the Halls of Healing, he would have seen a lone dark-haired figure standing at the foot of the path, silently watching his departure, his hand held up in a gesture of farewell.


	13. Chapter 13

**Lothlorien, Third Age 179**

By the reckoning of the elves, a single _yén_ is but the blink of an eye. Thus it was that Haldir returned to his native realm in an eye-blink's time. The eaves of the woods looked to him unchanged by the passage of years, but though the trees sang to him even at a distance, drawing him to them, there seemed something foreign  
in them, as if he could not fully remember their song. 'Twas little wonder: Haldir had now lived away from Lothlorien for more seasons than he had lived within it, though it remained the home of his heart.

"Strange, is it not?" Gildor Inglorion pulled his mount up beside him, observing his reaction during the last leagues of their journey. "I have lived in Imladris nigh on an age, yet I am always out of sorts when I reach its pathways after a long stay abroad. Perhaps I fear too much will have changed in my absence. Perhaps I fear too little has changed."

Haldir sighed. Gildor's words were perfectly on point. He would miss the elda's wisdom dearly, along with his fearsome wit, a perfect foil for Ausir's more earthy humor. That, too, would be missed. He longed for home, and yet…

_"Daro!"_

Haldir startled, wondering for a passing moment if that had been a command to halt his maudlin thoughts or halt his horse. He had not anticipated being stopped at the borders, for he knew their progress had been tracked since descending Hithaeglir.

Gildor rode to the head of the group and raised his hand in greeting.

"I ride with a company of seven, including one of your own. Will you grant us entry?"

There was a long silence, and Haldir scanned the trees, trying to discern the faces of the guardians there, but they were well hidden even to elven eyes that knew where to look. At last, a voice resounded from the branches, strange and deep.

"We will allow you to pass… with the exception of one. He who names himself galadhel yet shuns the land of his birth for years on end rescinds his right to enter here. If he would claim his heritage now, he would have done better to return sooner."

The company froze, jaws agape. It was unheard of to bar an elf from his realm simply because he had been too long away. Haldir's blood thickened in his veins: exile was a punishment reserved for only the most heinous of crimes! Would not any of his fellows speak on his behalf?

Gildor strode forward furiously. "On whose authority was this decided? Who dares deny an elf safe passage to his very home?" Haldir had only chanced to hear Inglorion's voice take that dark tone a few times over the years, though he had never been its target, for which he was grateful.

"On my authority!" the voice returned. "On the authority of one who desires to punish his brother for staying so long away!"

Those last words came in a cadence with the footfalls of the elf who now stepped clear of the trees, grinning from ear to ear, and it was difficult to say whether the laughter was louder in the trees or from the mouths of the company assembled below. Haldir slumped half in relief, half in frustration. He slid from his horse and rushed to meet Orophin's open arms.

"I can keep up my jest no longer. Welcome home, brother mine!"

* * *

The company spent their first night in Lothlorien in sight of its borders in _telain _reserved for just such a contingency. They were austere yet comfortably appointed with thick pallets for sleeping, blankets and furs for cold weather, even some dried fruit, and a flask of miruvor for the particularly wayworn traveler. They joined the border guard for their evening meal, Haldir receiving an enthusiastic greeting from Taurnil, who proudly owned that he had given Orophin the idea of waylaying them.

"I should have suspected as much!" Haldir groaned. "And now I am forced to sample your questionable cooking that I might be reminded of why I fled this place!"  
The two tussled playfully before Orophin impatiently called them over. "He is my blood, and I have first claim on his attention. A song for your supper, Haldir! We would have at least one tale of your travels this night!"

Haldir grinned. He was happy to provide a tale, the only question being: which one? In these years of errantry, the wandering company of Gildor Inglorion had amassed many stories. They returned often to Imladris, relaying messages between the cloistered vale and the Kingdom of Arnor, and occasionally for more significant events: the escort of Eldacar, grandson of Elendil, to his fosterage, the revels following Elrond Peredhel's long-awaited marriage to Celebrian, and most recently, the celebrations to honor the births of Elrond's twin sons. But 'twas not only the lonely lands between the Misty Mountains and the Blue that saw the company's passage, but the length and breadth of Arda, from the wasted tundra of the Forodwaith to the Mouths of the Anduin. In the course of their travels they drank Dorwinion wine on the shores of the Sea of Rhûn, and espied the great ships moored in the harbors of Edhellond. Darker days they had seen as well, the rousting of yrch nests, a violent encounter with a band of Haradrim in South Gondor, an attack by wargs that killed Ausir's horse out from under him and, save for a neat shot, might have slaughtered him as well…  
He settled on recounting an archery contest they had witnessed in Eryn Galen, knowing a playful rivalry existed between the Silvan clans, if only in their minds—few of their number had traveled to Greenwood since the end of the Second Age, and even fewer of their northern cousins had ventured south.

"King Thranduil…what was he like?" someone queried.

Haldir chuckled in recollection. When first they met the silvan king, he had walked with a pronounced limp. They feared he had taken some injury until he gave them an apologetic grin and pulled back his robes to reveal the innocent smile and mischievous eyes of an elfling bearing the same spun-gold hair as his sire clinging stubbornly to the King's leg.

"Might I present my son?" He leaned down and spoke to the youngling. "Legolas, our visitors have traveled some distance. Will you not greet them as a princeling should?"

The elfling allowed himself to be pulled to his feet by his father, then fussed for a moment with his tunic before thrusting out his little chest and equally little hand and announcing in an imperious chirp: "Mae govannen! I am Legolas Thranduilion."

"He was both gracious and comely," Haldir answered. "Though I have much love for our own ruler, I must admit that it is Thranduil who is the more kingly in his mien. And I wager his get will match his graces when he is grown."

The other travelers piped in with tales of their own, and Haldir happily turned his attention to his meal until he heard his name shouted from a distance. Moments later, Rúmil pushed through the ring of loitering guardians, breathless and flushed.

"Feredir sent word… I thought he meant only to tease me… Can it be you are returned to us at last?"

Haldir stood and embraced him. "Aye, little brother. I am home to stay."

Even the mention of his rival's name could do nothing to stem the flood of his joy at seeing his youngest brother. He released him and held him at arm's length to admire his strong and handsome figure, all vestiges of youth tempered to maturity. Here was an elf in his prime.

Rúmil smiled brightly, a beautiful sight. "You have been most sorely missed."

* * *

The following day, the Wandering Company made their way to Caras Galadhon with the Rúmil and several others accompanying. Haldir was eased to find that every step of the journey proved as familiar as if he had walked those paths only a day before.

Gildor sought King Amroth's herald, hoping to report what news they had gathered from the Northern and Southern kingdoms and the land in between. The King, however, was not in his chambers. His seneschal wrung his hands helplessly.

Elemmakil had told Haldir in confidence that Amroth had become besotted by a young maid who lived in the far reaches of the wood. She was a fey creature who kept to herself and showed her face little. Yet that hidden face had been comely enough to ensnare the King. It was also well known that, king or no, the mysterious _elleth_ had thus far resisted his advances, which enchanted him all the more. Haldir surmised the sovereign had excused himself to further his pursuit, much to the chagrin of his advisors.

"No matter, " Gildor waved. "If you will hear me out, I see no reason why I must await the King's ear."

The relieved seneschal gestured for Gildor to follow him down the long, arched hallway, the sound of his swishing robes echoing in the quiet corridor. Gildor fell in step behind him, giving the rest of the company a quick dismissal.

Word of the company's return spread quickly. Ausir's renewed presence in the Golden Wood proved to be of particular interest to the bevy of maids who had made his intimate acquaintance during his previous stay, and were eager to give him a most genial welcome. The poor elf was thunderstruck, not having any idea how to handle such a surfeit of feminine charms, and puzzled aloud how he could possibly manage to keep each from knowing of the others.

"'Tis a feast now," he bemoaned, "but if I am not discreet, 'twill be a famine soon enough!"

When the trees were gilded with the honeyed light of Anor's descent, Haldir walked at last to the place he had missed most of all: the grove. And as he had hoped, his friends and brothers awaited him there. Even Feredir's presence could not irk him this eve.

Galion stood back from the others who rushed to greet him, watching with restrained awe the way he walked now with cocksure steps and a head carried high. In his years away, the eldest of Guilin's sons had come fully into his own, and his newfound boldness made him more handsome still. Haldir came to him last. He took Galion's his face between his hands, met a gaze gleaming with affection, and kissed his mouth.

"I have missed you," he said simply, softly, and they sank down together in their accustomed spot, cradled between the thick roots of the mallorn.

A gay, feminine twitter preceded the arrival of Alquonís, followed by one of her father's young apprentices rolling a firkin of wine behind her. Haldir did not miss the way his brother's face lit up at the first sound of her approach.

"Welcome home, Haldir. My father sends his regards, and I send you this," she gestured to the youngster, who rolled the small barrel into the center of the grove and produced a tap from the pocket of his apron.

A chivalrous kiss met the soft, pale skin of the lady's hand as Haldir proffered his thanks, though her eyes had turned to Orophin, and Haldir wondered as he raised himself up from bended knee that Orophin had not yet asked her to wed. He gathered now, from the steadiness of his brother's gaze that the lovely and patient vintner's daughter had at last won his brother's fidelity. A brief pang assailed him, knowing that such faithfulness had never been his. Might never be.

While some of the others scattered to round up tankards and wineskins, Taurnil happily set the barrel on a stump and tapped it, raising a toast, he said, "in Haldir's honor and Alquonís' debt!" She curtsied to him theatrically and withdrew, favoring Orophin with a warm look as she left. His eyes followed her.

The glade rang with happy laughter, punctuated by musical interludes, scandalous lyrics sung in Ausir's deceptively sweet voice. Settling back against the great tree's boll, Haldir slipped his arms around his friend's shoulders, and they watched the revelry before them as if from a distance.

"Does it seem strange to you that you have now been abroad for more years than you have lived in Lothlorien? Does it seem less your home now?"

Haldir had to turn his head to catch Galion's low tone. Couched therein was a question more urgent that the healer dared not ask: _did you love your errantry so much that you will seek a life in other lands?_ He was warmed by the unspoken concern.

"Nay, this seems more my home than ever. I have been the length and breadth of the land and can now say in truth that there is no more beautiful place on Arda's shores than the place of my birth. I doubt even the Woods of Oromë hold such splendors." He caught Galion's neck in the crick of his elbow and pulled him tight. "For shame, _mellon_… Did you think I would forsake you? That I could forego the company of my boon companion and my brothers? My heart is here. I heard not the gulls calling me to the sea, but the wind calling me to the wood."

Galion let out his breath and sank back into his friend's embrace. The warm weight of Haldir's head resting against his own warmed him so thoroughly that he was sure his cheeks looked aflame from it. A lock of pale hair crossed his line of vision from above, tickling his cheek, and he thought there was no sweeter sensation.

Slowly, the barrel was drained. Low chortles erupted when gentle snoring replaced ribald refrains as Ausir's tune of choice. One of his compatriots hoisted him up and he focused his eyes long enough to bid them all a slurred valediction as his friend helped him back to his quarters.

Haldir stretched and rose to his feet. "I should take my leave as well. The hour grows late.'

"Oh, I see!" Taurnil japed. "You have already managed to arrange an assignation when you have barely had the time to toss your bags into your bedroom!"  
The others laughed, but Haldir just smiled knowingly, refuting nothing. "I have matters to which I must attend."

He went on to say something else, to give some hearty thanks, but Galion heard it not, deafened by the rush of blood in his ears. In the time it took for him to swallow back his nausea, to take the first deep breath against the pain that felt like a fist hurtling into his gut, one hundred years and forty-four more of silent waiting, of guarding and tending his hope, were shattered. One hundred years and forty-four more had not sufficed to sunder the bond wrought by Elemmakil of Gondolin.  
Sick with shame almost as much with grief, he understood then that a mere healer could never hope to compete; that hundreds of years at Haldir's side as a dispenser of comforts and a keeper of secrets would always pale plainly in the resplendent light cast by a warrior. After all, was it not the first rule of medicine that he had learned, that like calls to like?

"You cannot mean to leave us so soon!" Rúmil persisted, but he knew it was useless. Haldir's course was set.

Haldir flashed an appeasing smile. "You will see me again tomorrow, and the next day, and every day thereafter. Soon enough you will be glad to see the back of me."

He kissed Galion, the same chaste and affectionate kiss he dealt each brother. With a final grin, he turned and left.

Orophin crossed the mossy dell and took Haldir's place at Galion's side. "I am sorry," he said. "I had hoped…"

His voice trailed off. _My words_ _will cause more ache than succor._

Galion silently nodded, the light in his grey eyes muted. He, too, had hoped.

* * *

The light sound of undisguised footfalls alerted him to the presence of another even before the snide tone cut the darkness.

"Barely home a day and you throw your brothers aside for a lover you have not seen in a century's time. A lover who cast you off, if I remember correctly. "

_It would be too much to ask of a scapegrace that I have a single day's peace, would it not?_ He did not favor the elf with a rejoinder. For Rúmil's sake alone he would hold his tongue. He kept to his path without so much as a backward glance, but the elf's mocking voice stalked behind him.

"And I believe I _do _remember correctly, as I found it quite amusing that he wanted you out of his bed so badly he cast you forth from the realm for a _yén_'s time!"  
Haldir turned and stared at Feredir impassively, refusing the bait.

Greeted with more silence, the galadhel shook his head and chuckled darkly. "You simply assume he will be overjoyed with your visit. What will you do should you find his bed occupied? Do not think for a moment he lay cold and alone in your absence."

Feredir's words were likely true: Elemmakil had promised no constancy in Haldir's presence; in his absence, the Marchwarden's defection was all but guaranteed. Stung but unbowed, he shrugged it off casually.

"I do not trouble myself wondering whose company he keeps when I am away. 'Tis not for me to question, as he will not question where I have passed my nights."

Feredir laughed unpleasantly. "He need not ask! If you have dallied at all in your travels, I daresay it was a brief romp on the hard ground with one of your fellows; at best a tumble with some tavern whore who might just as soon have paid you for the singular novelty of bedding an elf!"

"What do you care how my return is received?" he asked hotly, his ire at last brought to the fore. "You warn me off, yet admit you would be happy to see my humiliation."

"Your humiliation, however novel, causes your brother pain. And thus I must abhor it as well. Your brothers are loathe to have you demeaned by your hopeless pursuit—for that is what it is,_mellon._" That word, rolling from Feredir's tongue, grated like gravel on Haldir's ears. "But I find it amusing. To watch all these years as you trot behind him biddable as a pup, patiently waiting for him to claim you. But he doesn't claim you, does he? Neither in word nor in deed."

Haldir was galled at just how aptly the golden-haired cur had perceived the truth, but was determined not to give him his due. "You call me a pup, yet that is how you would have my brother, is it not? Biddable and ever at your heel? I could only guess who and how many warm your bed when he is on patrol."

"_I_ do not stray." His voice was ripe with righteousness. "Why should I? My lover attends to me. He claims me fully, as I claim him."

"You claim him only to spite me."

Feredir glared hotly, revealing the full swelter of his contempt. "You would think that. Not everything that is done in the Golden Wood is done to please or displease you, Haldir, surprising as that might seem. I cherish Rúmil, whatever you might think. And unlike you, I have never underestimated him, nor dismissed him for lack of years, nor maligned him for lack of experience as you have."

Haldir's back stiffened in outrage. "What do you mean by that? When have I ever dismissed him? How dare you insinuate I have ever treated him with anything but love!"

"You were ready to declare his life's path for him without so much as a by-your-leave! You would ship him off to pose with the peacocks in the palace guard when all he has ever desired was to walk with _you_ on the marches. In one fell swoop you might have robbed this realm you claim to love of one of its most valiant defenders!"

When Haldir did not respond, he continued.

"He esteems you too highly to dare a boast, but in your absence, he has come to wield his bow with skill Cuthalion himself would credit. But had you gotten your way, that talent would be wasted on a fancy tabard in an empty throne room."

Knuckles paled to the color of bone as Haldir drew his hands into fists trembling with rage. "I wanted him safe! He was young and untested, our father was dead, our mother barely sensate from the weight of her grief. You would censure me for doing what I thought best for us all?" His voice was strident with anger and disgust. "I admit I knew it would not be to his liking, but I was frightened and bereaved. Does it please you to hear that from my mouth, scoundrel? Does it entertain you to know I was afraid?"

No betraying emotion stirred in Feredir's face. "You sought to take the choice from him without discussion, just as you sought to bar my suit with no consideration for his desires. You care little for his wants or needs and see only to your own. He would happily spend this night sitting at your feet, hearing your tales—however gilded and self-serving they may be—and basking your company as he has not done in all these years. But his company means less to you than your Marchwarden's. Rumil paid another to take his place on the border that he might return with you today rather than to be kept from you a single moment longer, but what is his sacrifice and another's inconvenience compared to your desires? Can you truly wonder why I hold you in contempt?"

_"Avo…_please, stop_."_

Limned in torchlight, Rúmil's features looked eerily attenuated, his mouth drawn down in a long frown. Yet even in his presence, neither party looked the least bit abashed.

"No more," Rúmil ordered. "I will not have those I love malign each other." His visage was sorrowful but resigned. "I do not ask for amity between you, but if the love you each claim to bear me is true, do not continue this."

The evening's peace had fled, the wellbeing mustered in the grove drained from them all like wine from the barrel. Both competitors jumped in, barking accusations and slinging invectives in crescendoing tones.

"Enough! I will not choose between you! If you force me to side with one against the other, I swear I will disavow you both. I give each of you my love and I will not have it returned with spite."

Chastened, Haldir looked away, but not before watching Feredir cross to his brother and snake a possessive arm around his waist.

"Go to him, then," Rúmil dismissed. "I will look for you on the morrow."

If Feredir purposed to question Rúmil's quick clemency, he promptly thought better of it. His mouth set in a grim line.

Haldir nodded stiffly, knowing an apology would be meaningless, and altering his plans now would be an empty gesture. With the joy of his homecoming now shadowed by guilt wrought of his own design, Haldir watched Feredir lead his brother back to the grove, and then turned to follow a path of his own.

* * *

The soft rapping at the door came later than he expected, but it came nonetheless.

News flew in the Golden Wood as if on wings, and indeed the winged creatures of the wood played their part in its germination, bearing notes from the borders to runners—fishwives on swift feet, more to the point—within the wood. When one had appeared yesterday eve, all he said was, "The party of Gildor Inglorion has entered the wood," but the wry press of his lips suggested an implicit addendum. Elemmakil had looked at him irritably. He may as well have come out forthwith and said _Your erstwhile lover has returned. Do you plan to bed him in due haste, or let him unpack his bags afore?_ Yet exhibiting annoyance would only have given grist to their mills. He held his face phlegmatic and thanked him. The runner's lips curled up a fraction more as heacknowledged his dismissal, as if to grant the point won by the Marchwarden, and then he was off.

And now, Elemmakil wondered how he would have answered the impudent runner's unspoken query. At least the second part had been settled; Haldir had taken his packs to his home before landing on his doorstep.

Elemmakil could not help marvelling at him. Haldir had ridden out of the wood a youngling still, despite his experience, mere decades beyond youth's end, and here he was now, leaning nonchalantly and awaiting any signal to advance, the full measure of an elf. His body was all sinew, his frame distilled by harsh conditioning and spare circumstance to hard-honed muscle and bone. The hand's span that had once separated their heights had vanished.

But it was his bearing more than anything else that set Elemmakil's heart galloping apace and his blood thrumming madly: proud, erect, with an assuredness heretofore only inchoate in his stance. As he took a step forward, head cocked, beryl-stone eyes that no longer faltered under his grey gaze told him: _You sent me away a stripling and I have returned your equal. You have met your match in me._

There were no words, not so much as a hail-and-well-met. Words were a complicated tangle necessitating explanations, justifications, and recriminations; mute, they made a compact to let their bodies speak for them, elemental gestures offering more potent understanding than any uttered phrase.

Moving to the bed, Haldir stripped quickly, his eyes never leaving the Marchwarden's. He did not sprawl out and offer himself as he had once done; he sat ready, unblinking, and powerfully aroused, the length of him curving up from between his legs with bedeviling audacity. The Marchwarden's nostrils flared, a muscle in his jaw twitched. He stripped with equal efficiency, partly in haste to commence and partly in irritation, and bent to take Haldir's lips in a harsh kiss. Their mouths had barely joined when Haldir pulled him roughly to the bed.

The confidence espoused by the cocky tilt of Haldir's hips as he posed in the doorway manifested now in full; he was a demanding and hungry creature bent on sating himself, glutting on febrile skin and flexing limbs, visceral and ungentle as a storm wind. When Haldir forced his head down, Elemmakil felt his own erection swell viciously. Foreign lands, the imprint of travel and sweat, still exuded from Haldir's skin, the arch of his need salty and wild under Elemmakil's tongue. No coy writhing and desperate mewling here, but a thickly corded abdomen seizing hard and the growl of a beast. So helplessly arousing was this display of near violent desire that Elemmakil had to beat back the craving to crawl up the bed in supplication, offering the whole of his body for Haldir's ruthless usage. With each dip of his head, each swipe of his tongue, a need burgeoned within him to be subdued, to relinquish that last bit of him that had been so long suppressed. His bodyscreamed for that which he had only allowed one other…

_No_!

Somewhere in the depths of his mind, a tocsin rang out and clarity returned. He reigned in his fractious need.

Haldir spent himself hard down the Marchwarden's throat, a flood sweeping Elemmakil's mind clean of all the transitory visitors to his bed in thick, convulsing spurts. When he lifted his head, neck stiff and jaw aching, his own need still throbbing between his legs, Haldir merely reached down and wiped away the trail of seed on his chin with his thumb.

With the Marchwarden stretched at his side, fingers roving freely, Haldir's ardor soon rekindled; he had known little of relief beyond his own hand for far too long, and his body craved release near as much as food or sleep. Elemmakil eased him with hands and mouth, with the taut friction of his thighs, the latter act tormenting Elemmakil with exquisite images of his own total surrender. Haldir withheld Elemmakil's pleasure for a nearly unbearable interval, denying the Marchwarden what he felt had long been denied him: attention, affection, pleasure. Yet Elemmakil's climax, wrought at last by the galadhel's singularly enchanting mouth, was of such intensity that he saw nothing but brilliant white light when the first wave crested and then broke, leaving him boneless and blind.

Night had almost given way to dawn, and the floor around the bed was littered with jettisoned clothing and sheets. Elemmakil stared listlessly at the window, watching the play of breeze-tossed branches silhouetted on his drawn curtains. One branch pointed its bony finger, bobbing in accusation. He nodded lamely at the window as if to appease the shaming trees.

No _restraint whatsoever. I could stand against him no more than I could an oncoming horde. Not even one day returned, and I behave as if not one thing has changed between us in all of these years._

Beside him, Haldir slept the deep sleep of the safe and the sated. The soft smile on his face was due perhaps as much to the decadence of soft down pillows, finespun sheets and a well-fed belly as to the quenching of baser thirsts. He had returned, and he had not come timidly, suing for reentry to the Marchwarden's graces. He had swaggered in and thoroughly, irrefutably, staked his claim. And just as before, the Marchwarden could little deny him.

Tenderly, he kissed Haldir's temple, then sank into the bed and molded himself to the warden's back.

_Perhaps… _he thought, and for once it did not seize him with panic.

_Perhaps._


	14. Chapter 14

The sickle blade sliced cleanly through stems, sheared stalks bleeding beads of white sap and scent. The _athelas _crop thrived, and vivid green plants filled his baskets to overflowing. But the feverfew faltered, languishing for lack of light. Wan yellow buds hung on spindly stalks, the very picture of defeat; an adjacent sapling had grown thick and high, strong as a soldier, its bold canopyeclipsing the garden bed.

_That which grows in shadow bears paltry fruit,_ Galion remarked in sullen silence, pulling up one of the frail plants and examining the undersized roots and feeble flowers_._ He tossed it aside_._

Salvaging what he could, he filled his baskets and returned to the healing houses, where he bundled the herbs and hung them to dry. Mindless work, but necessary. Delving into moist soil and feeling his blood attune to the steady pulse of the earth gladdened him; few other things did.

Casual encounters provided ephemeral distraction, balm for the lonely body if not a palliative for the soul, but even with a body warming the bed beside him, the lingering sense of humiliation did not abate. At least he had remained circumspect about the extent of his encounter with Haldir in Imladris. That was a small mercy to his beleaguered pride, which recovered slowly, kept at a safe distance from the one who pained him.

Yet keeping his distance was as unbearable in its own way as seeing him with the Marchwarden: he missed the simple companionship of his friend. Taurnil was good and loyal and quick with a smile or jest, but Haldir's absence left a palpable void in his spirit. He cursed his rogue tongue for foolishly spelling out his affections when they would have been better left in silence. His heart would have ached no less for it, but his dignity might not have withered so pathetically.

The familiar clop of boots outside the door constricted the muscles between his shoulder blades. He busied himself assembling kits for the outgoing patrol, filling them with bandages and slings, herbs and ointments. He pulled the cork from a pot, tilting it to eye the contents, and quietly cursed. The pale yellow unguent was nearly gone. As Haldir stepped into the room, he was meting out what little remained into two smaller jars. He did not turn to greet his friend, and Haldir did not offer a salutation so much as a salvo.

"You avoid me. Why?"

What gall that Haldir could even ask, and do so with such pique! His back still turned, Galion chuckled joylessly to himself, careful not to let the warden see the acid in his smile.

"I have matters of my own to attend to. Assembling these, for example." His arm swung out towards the packs.

"I realize. I was sent for them." He would not be put off as easily as that. "You know of what I speak. You have made yourself scarce this whole season. Can you claim it mere coincidence?"

Galion's voice was taut as he tried to ignore the attempt to draw him out. "Only two of these are ready. We sent the last of the yarrow salve with Tathalion's patrol and it will be three days or more before I have enough to fully supply you." He stopped, his head drooped, his mouth opening and closing, dumb as a landed fish, as he corralled his thoughts and hemmed in the frayed edges of his unhappiness. "I did not imagine your return to us would find you returned to _him_."

Haldir drew back as if bitten. Though no fool to imagine his return to the Marchwarden's bed would please his companion, he saw now in Galion's refusal to meet his eyes, his persistent avoidance, his sharp tone, that he had sorely underestimated the healer's reaction. The memory of their sweet and heated parting had sustained him through lonesome nights, but time abroad had changed him. Hardened him. He understood now why Elemmakil had sent him forth, and returning stronger and wiser, he wanted the Marchwarden to see his understanding and reward it.

"'Twas not my intention to cause you grief."

Angry hands tamped tightly rolled bandages further into packs, wedging them deep in the corners. A hand gripped his arm, arresting his jabbing fist. He did not shirk the touch, though neither did he yield to it. Despite pain and shame, his body thrummed at Haldir's nearness, both longing for it and angered by it.

"Do you begrudge me my happiness?"

Hesitation. "No."

A silent indictment followed: _I rue that it comes at my expense._

"_No, _he says, yet he cannot look me in the face," Haldir returned snidely, and was rewarded with a brief glimpse of tight grey eyes, and a countenance vacillating between misery and contempt, before Galion retreated once more to his bandages and bundles.

"Afore all else, are we not sworn brothers?" The edge in Haldir's voice softened momentarily. "I would not have that bond sundered."

Adamant eyes closed, shuttering sorrows behind heavy lids. A weary sigh. "It is not sundered."

"Then stop holding yourself aloof." Haldir tucked the finished kits under his arm. "I have more I would say to you. We will speak later."

An order, not a request. The superciliousness of it rankled Galion. _Later._ How easily Haldir assumed that he would make himself available _later_. That he would tick the days off in his mind until_later_ became _now_.

Another weary sigh. His unuttered protestations fooled no one, himself least of all. He nodded, but still refused to turn; a trivial victory.

* * *

"Haldir, Rúmil… With me!"

At the Marchwarden's command, the brothers dropped from their perches, landing lightly on the ground below. The first days of the tour had passed with nothing to note but the occasional hawk wheeling in the cloudless sky or some small animal darting out from Hithaeglir's foothills, either stalking prey or becoming it. The wardens had let down their guard, talking in low tones among themselves. Elemmakil even turned a blind eye now and then to the dicing games some started to while away the idle, sunny hours. But all snapped to attention at the sound of the Marchwarden's voice.

Elemmakil squinted into the distance. The southern marches had long been quiet, but he knew full well that quiet could be deceptive; he had not forgotten the elves lost to orc arrows and the Celebrant's frigid pull only a stone's throw further down the stream. It was not yrch this day, but men who disrupted the stillness of the borders, crossing the Limlaith, likely en route from the Wold. But these were no traders; they had neither wagon nor goods.

"Riders approach," the Marchwarden told them tersely, and the brothers followed close behind him, bows at the ready, as he stepped out of the cover of the woods. They would meet the party on the Field of Celebrant, well away from the eaves of Lorien's forest, and determine their purpose.

Three riders moved toward them at a steady trot, neither rushing nor tarrying. Their dress was worn and filthy, but the horses were of quality. One man rode at the lead, carrying a boy in front of him with a pale face and lolling head. His fellows followed a horse's length behind bearing heavy bows by their sides, arrows nocked on the strings. The lead rider's sword bobbed at his hip to the rhythm of the horse's stride. Its curved lines were almost elven in style, and the Marchwarden knew it on sight as a blade of Gondorian make, and a fine one at that, an unlikely weapon for such a rough man.

"Be aware," he warned.

Even at that distance, Elemmakil's keen eye beheld froth between the horses' thighs, and heaving flanks telling of beasts hard-ridden. They carried their heads too high, champing their bits, unhappy with the heavy, unfamiliar hands that drove them. Elemmakil's sense of unease became outright alarm, yet the child in the man's arms was sore in need of aid, that much was clear, and Elemmakil took that to be the reason they came now toward the wood.

"Call out to them."

Haldir stepped forward and shouted a greeting in Westron, a language which had once felt like gravel in his throat and sounded harsh and flat to his ears, but after so many dealings with men in the North-kingdom and the South, it fell now as easily from his lips as his own.

"The boy needs care," the man at the head returned. "Come forth and help us, or does the famed hospitality of the elves not extend to mere mortals?"

The elves bristled at the provocative tone. Were it not for the child, they would have moved to eject this band forthwith.

"If you seek our hospitality, you will disarm." Behind him, Elemmakil shifted warily, his hands poised on his bowstring.

An unfriendly grin split the man's face like a wound. "But we are only seeking help for the wee child… what fear have you of us?"

Haldir looked at the child and knew he was grave, but he had doubts now that this boy belonged with these men. All the more reason to intercede. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as the riders slowed to a walk, stepping just within arrow's range.

"You trespass here," he told them darkly. "Disarm at once or we will fire."

The lips of the leader twitched, but he made no motion suggesting he planned to comply. Behind Haldir, wood moaned as Elemmakil and Rúmil trained their bows on the interlopers. At Elemmakil's order, Haldir gave one final warning. The words had not yet cleared his lips when one of the rear riders lifted his drawn bow and released the string. Elemmakil shouted for him to drop.

Rúmil had loosed his arrow simultaneously, and the shooter was dead before his body toppled from its mount. Elemmakil's flew just behind, unseating the second rider. The lead man gouged his horse's flank with his heels, driving it forward while jerking his sword from its sheath. The child tumbled from the saddle and lay crumpled and still on the ground. Rúmil's second shot neatly pierced the rider's throat as he charged and dealt his death with blinding efficiency. The horse shrieked, strident in its terror, and bolted.

Rúmil turned and let out a wail of horror. No matter his speed, the man had released first, and his arrow had flown true.

Haldir sank to his knees, a grey-fletched bolt embedded in his chest.

* * *

_Blessed Varda, not this!_

Later, Galion would remember it as the day all his training failed him. He, who had triaged hundreds—nay, thousands—of wounded and dying on the arid wastes of the Dagorlad, he who had devoted himself to tending the bloody fruits of war, stood paralyzed when the litter bearing Haldir's broken body was brought before him. The Marchwarden's angry, anguished scream ("_Galion, see to him!_") brought him back to his senses like a slap to his face and spurred him into motion.

He helped the others hoist the litter to the table and quickly assessed the extent of his friend's injury. The arrow had gone deep, and the blood staining Haldir's lips and trickling darkly down his chin foretold a punctured lung. The shaft still projected cruelly from his chest. Cradled tightly in the canvas of the stretcher, Haldir was silent and still.

_If he dies under my hand, I will surely follow… I cannot bear that burden…_

A clatter of metal: another healer laying out blades and forceps, tools for probing the body's hidden places. A rending of fabric: the grey wool of Haldir's uniform cut away, exposing mottled flesh. A revelation of skin: Galion's focus pulled down…down… his purpose clear and renewed. The noise of the infirmary receded to a faraway din, drowned out by the cries of flesh voicing its umbrage at the intrusion of wood and steel, blood hissing at its own loss. Haldir's body gave up its secrets to Galion's touch, demanded the strength of his hands to return the vitality now fading. Galion drew in a bracing breath and lifted hisscalpel.

_Do not let me fail him... Elbereth guide my hand._

The blade honed to a perfect edge split tissue and viscera with faultless precision, a living extension of the unwavering hand that wielded it.

* * *

Rúmil stood still as stone until the doors of the surgery closed; silent tears swelled to broken sobs when Orophin, wild-eyed and breathless, hurtled into the corridor, having covered the distance between his own post and the healing halls with strides swift as a _mearh_. At the sight of blue eyes so like to Haldir's, so like to the ones he had watch turn filmy and sightless, the floodgates of Rúmil's horror broke wide.

"I failed him, Orophin!" A desolate howl. "I was not fast enough. That whoreson should have been dead ere he could draw his shot!"

"You followed your orders. You took the man down. You…"

"…We will lose him…"

"Nay!" Orophin pushed Rúmil away, locking their eyes in a stare tight as the fingers he shackled around the other's arms. "Still your tongue! We can ill afford a negative thought." His voice softened and he enfolded Rúmil once again, equally needful of a brother's touch. "Think you that Galion would allow him to fall? He would gladly offer Mandos his own soul before letting Haldir enter the Halls."

The sky darkened and night fell, and still the healers did not emerge from behind their closed doors. The two brothers waited alone in their miserable silence.

* * *

In the darkness of the empty barrack, Elemmakil paced.

Rúmil and Orophin, enmeshed in shared consternation, failed to notice his departure. He could not bear to linger in those gently lit halls, in torchlight muted with curved shades as if to lull one into a sense of soft wellbeing that was never guaranteed, to pacify those who waited on one side of the impassable door while on the other, a beloved might even at that moment be slipping cold into Námo's grasp. Those dim lights seemed a subtle ambuscade to him, a pretty mask veiling death.

He did not return to his quarters, though Tathalion had already relieved him of his duties. He knew he would find no respite there, only guilt that he should have comfort while his lover lay poised between life and death.

_There is no greater treachery than violence on a cloudless day._

Once, the Gates of Summer opened to just such a day, a pristine dawn holding all the promise of the season. His first, his truest love died on such a day.Yes, the treason of clear and windless mornings was the most grievous of all.

How could an event unfold so quickly, yet with each second stretching for so agonizing an eternity? He had kept his eyes on the lead rider and the injured child, had not seen the second man move until he had already begun to lift his weapon. And when that arrow flew, he knew its trajectory but could do nothing to stop it. Rúmil's reaction had been so blindingly fast, so instinctive, that even as he screamed his warning to Haldir, he imagined Haldir out of harm's way, spared by his brother's lightning reflexes. His own weapon spat its deadly fury a heartbeat later.

But turning his head, he saw Haldir's knees buckle under him, as if he was kneeling in supplication, the strong body folding as it fell… no, not fell, sank…to the green grass of the field.

Haldir's face had gone grey, his lips blanched. The unnatural pallor stunned Elemmakil, and in that instant he saw not Haldir, but another grey face, a body sliding from Tuor's arms and sinking to the ground with preternatural grace even as his shattered shield-arm hung obscenely twisted at his side. When he saw Ecthelion for the very last time, amid the smoke and chaos of a city under siege, his lover's—his love's- skin had been the same lusterless grey. Grey, the color of an arrow'sfletching, the color of steel, the color of imminent death.

Elemmakil had slapped Haldir's cheeks hard, bade the warden look at him. For a brief moment, swimming eyes had stilled and met his own, and Elemmakil almost believed Haldir might smile then, make some jest and jerk away offending shaft, a harmless child's toy, until his entire body was wracked with a painful cough, frothy blood flying from his mouth and spattering warmly across Elemmakil's cheek. His eyes no longer reflected bright sky, but rolled backward, pale as clouds, as he slipped into unconsciousness.

And it had all been for naught.

The boy they thought to save was already dead, his slim neck snapped like brittle tinder long before his fall. A journeyman engraver traveling with wife and child to Gondor met a brutal fate on the road for a pouch of coin and some pretty horseflesh. If death had been the only cruelty the brigands had meted out to the youngling, he had been lucky. His mother's body been violated repeatedly even as she lay dying. The corpse of the hapless child proved useful bait for luring other wary travelers into incautious concern, and their ends were just as violent, their pockets picked just as clean. The villains' bodies were piled and burned like yrch. The elves refused to consign the innocent to the same pyre and buried his little body in the mortal fashion within the wood with a tiny cairn to mark it; no family remained to claim him. The ill-gotten gains—gold and silver coins, some poor soul's wedding band, the Gondorian sword—were left on the far side of the Limlaith at the outskirts of the Wold: let men keep the baubles they held more dear than lives; elves had no need of them. The taint of death rendered shining metal dull and colorless as dirt.

Elemmakil pivoted. A lone candle burnished the foliate plates of a cuirass. He looked at the orderly rows of armor hung in narrow stalls, the polished helms perched on shelves above, each vaguely resembling the form of a body even as it rested inert in the shadowed room. The Galadhrim guardians did not dress in armor to guard their borders; they had no need of it. Armor was for glorious battlefield campaigns, pennants held aloft and war-horns blaring, not for three dilapidated men and a dead  
child.

He licked his lips, caught off guard by the taste of iron on his tongue. Haldir's blood. He sank down on a bench, all strength sapped from his limbs, and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, seeking a deeper darkness than even the lightless room allowed.

Outside, candles still burned in the windows of the healing house, but he would not return there. Not tonight, nor on the morrow. Whatever news there was would reach him. He could not bear again to see grey skin and stillness and feel a new burden of loss compounding an ancient ache.

* * *

Drops of cool water wrung from a rag blossomed in concentric circles. Reflected in the basin, Galion's image distorted and rippled on the crests of tiny waves.

_"Did she ever tell you I came to sit with you each day? I did."_

Haldir's voice came back to him, and the earthy scent of damp canvas, as he thought of the night he had told Haldir of his disastrous first healing, and the way his heart danced in its rhythm when Haldir revealed he had sat at Galion's side quietly bargaining for his recovery.

_"I held your hand and begged you to wake. I even promised to give you the little knife my father had given me for my begetting day that year if you would open your eyes."_

The room was silent, save for Haldir's shallow, labored breathing, every inhalation leaving too long an abeyance before the next. Galion's heart hung in the spaces between those breaths, suspended in its rhythm while it waited for the next inspiration, beating in slow sympathy with Haldir's debilitated lungs.

When at last the barbed arrowhead had been dislodged, blood spurted in a bright jet from the wound, and Haldir's breath had wheezed through the hole. The injury was grave, but Haldir had not succumbed, not yet. Galion and the others had used every means at their disposal—scalpels, potions, the energy of their bodies—to hold his spirit to its wounded house.

_I have no little knife to tempt you. There is nothing of mine that would coax you back, though I would give my very life in trade, should you ask it._

And now, there was naught but waiting with the memory of unaddressed bitterness between them. Haldir remained in the heavy sleep induced with ancient phrases murmured softly by the one who would attend him all through that first, most critical night, and every night thereafter. Galion traced the lines on Haldir's brow, slightly furrowed as if in thought even while sleeping (_Or in pain_, Galion worried, deflated). With every touch, he summoned the strength he carried within, the light and warmth that coalesced in his body, given to him by earth and air, by fire and water, by the very breath of Iluvatar, and willed it go forth into Haldir.

_Please…_

Viewing from the threshold, Taurnil watched Galion at his vigil with a heart that ached for his friends, and ached for his own silent and unacknowledged love. Galion's eyes were now ringed in bluish circles. He had not seen the healer so overstrung since the final bloody days in Mordor. Steam from the bowl he carried wafted up, a diffuse filter over his vision, and in his mind, a memory revealed itself like secret treasure: the image of Galion curled up like a child on the hard ground in the corner of a tent, grasping the few moments of slumber he could find. Even with the din of battle assaulting his ears, Taurnil had found a moment's peace in watching Galion sleep.

"Even healers must take rest and nourishment some time. Even you."

Galion looked up and smiled wanly, inclining his head in thanks when his friend placed the bowl of hot stew his hands and a hunk of oven-warm bread on the bedside table.

"It is good."

"I am but the messenger." He leaned down and touched the unconscious warden's pale shoulder. The skin was hot. "The brothers are still sore afraid for this one. Alquonís has made it her sole vocation to feed their fears into submission, and ours as well."

Galion looked pleased. "Orophin would do well to marry her. She is as fine of spirit as she is fair of face."

"Aye," Taurnil nodded, moving to stand nearer to the healer as he ate. "He has hinted that should this crisis pass, he will wait no longer to betroth himself to her."

_Did you hear?_ Galion spoke in his mind to the taciturn form before him. _Your brother will marry. Is that not reason enough to return to us?_

"Please, friend…take some rest."

Taurnil's fingers brushed his cheek and he leaned, exhausted, into the touch.

"Aye," he let the spoon clatter against the side of the empty bowl. "I can do no more tonight." After leaning over the cot to kiss unresponsive lips, he let Taurnil's strong hand guide him away from the healing houses and into his bed. Exhaustion claimed him ere the sheets even settled over his body. He would never know that Taurnil sat and watched him well into the night.

* * *

Many days passed, and each one found Galion at Haldir's side, surrounded by the accreting evidence of his extended presence, the half-empty mugs of tea gone cold, the ever-present basin of cool water and damp cloths, keeping dutiful watch over his charge and holding court with the visitors who stopped each day to ask after him. His brothers hovered like rain clouds, though Alquonís' tender ministrations erased the dark circles from beneath Orophin's eyes, and the softened carriage of Rumil's shoulders spoke of a lover's attentive hands working tension and sorrow out of the muscles there; proof of Feredir's concern even if he never entered Haldir's room. Tathalion and the other members of the patrol came when they were able. Taurnil came often, as much for  
Galion's sake as Haldir's. Only one was conspicuous by his absence.

As Haldir's healing progressed, he unwittingly fought the ensorcelled sleep that held him, and sometimes, for a brief moment or two, he would break the shell of slumber, moaning or thrashing weakly on the cot. He would cry out, and always it was the same name that split the night, that pierced Galion's heart like a grey-fletched arrow even as he mopped the fevered face and soothed him in low tones.

"He is away at the borders,_ olórin-nin_. He cannot yet return." Each time, his voice was soft and even, but each time, anger rose like bile in his throat at the taste of the lie spreading over his tongue, soured further by the fact that he should be forced to utter untruths at all. He had messages sent to the Marchwarden, messages delivered face to face and hand to hand, but  
still Elemmakil did not come. Until today.

_At last the hero arrives! And after a mere fortnight of waiting for him to make his entrance. Wretched caitiff._

Standing silently in the doorway, Elemmakil assumed the healer registered his presence, though he did not acknowledge it; the pale form on the bed registered nothing. Elemmakil watched Galion perch on the cot, saw him taking in Haldir's ashen visage not with eyes assaying injury, but with the look of a heart forlorn. The gentle traverse of fingers over a barely-rising chest did not move with the steady purpose of healing, but restively, in the uneasy way of every lover who has ever held a bedside vigil, helplessly waiting. Galion's hands were listlessly employed in petting and stroking because nothing else remained for them to do. Elemmakil rebuked himself for the jealousy roused by the healer's intimacy.

His lover's face was pallid and gaunt. His lips, those beautiful, sensual lips, were drained of all color, almost invisible on the shadowed planes of his face. His eyes were closed and set too deep. Elemmakil thought it would unnerve him, to see Haldir's eyes shuttered like the dead, but it was better, he now thought, than seeing them milky and unfocused, rolling in their sockets. The dressing on his chest gave a false reassurance, the devastation beneath skin and behind bone hidden by a bandage of pristine white, not even the tiniest fleck of blood remaining to hint at what it concealed. All that strength and virility, the newly minted boldness that already had a tendency to overspill into arrogance, the infectious laugh like tumbling water: stilled and  
silenced.

When at last the healer looked up, his face immediately contracted in a glare of accusation.

"_Mae govannen_, Marchwarden. How good of you to stop in." Galion's voice was low and hostile.

Elemmakil overlooked the discourteous greeting. "How does he fare?"

"As well as can be expected. Your concern for his wellbeing is heartwarming."

Fire flared in the Marchwarden's eyes. "I need not bear your insolence, pup. There were reasons for my absence. I am not accountable to _you_."

"Ah! There were _reasons_! This is encouraging news! I thought perhaps only had use for him when his hands held enough strength to grasp your cock."

Elemmakil held back from pouncing on the healer and choking him into unconsciousness. The force required for such physical restraint brought his voice out roaring. "You dare such an insult?"

"I dare nothing!" Galion growled, feral and undaunted. "I am not yours to command and owe you no allegiance! You forget where you are. You will not raise your voice here, _Captain_." He grabbed the basin from the table pushed his way into the hall. Lukewarm water sloshed over the side and splashed across Elemmakil's boots as he passed, returning dusky brown leather to black where layers of accumulated dirt dissolved and vanished.

He cornered the healer in the small pump room where he had stalked away to rinse and refill the basin. Galion threw an angry glance over his shoulder and set down the bowl.

"He nearly died that first night. He lost too much blood. We thought he might lose the lung as well. It took all of our efforts to keep him with us. Why were you not here? If not as his lover, than as his captain. You had a duty to him and you have failed in it."

Elemmakil stiffened, attempting to reign in his temper. Had it been any other, he might have unburdened himself, sought some sort of absolution, explained his absence in all its pathetic grief, but he would not debase himself to his rival. He forced his voice into a semblance of neutrality.

"I thank you for the care you gave him. He could have been in no better hands than yours. But your care as a healer does not extend to knowing my whereabouts or questioning my actions."

Galion stared at him in disbelief. "Are you so cold? You are his lover, yet you care so little for his life or death that you would not even inconvenience yourself with a visit until now, whereas I would have given my life to save him!"

"Aha!" The Marchwarden sneered, shoving the younger elf hard against the wall and pinning him there with a furious hand to his throat. The healer neither flinched nor struggled, but his face was drawn with pure outrage. The basin wobbled precariously on the countertop before crashing to the floor, shattering across the stone slabs. "I should have known this had less to do with the state of Haldir's health than with the state of your precious, wounded pride!"

Two of the other healers appeared in the doorway, appalled, but a hard look from Galion and they collared their instinct to intercede and left him to settle his own affairs.

"Do not turn your miserable scorn on me because he does not look upon _you _with eyes of desire!" The Marchwarden hissed his wrath. "It is not my fault you want more from him than he will give."

Galion gripped Elemmakil's wrist, prizing off his fingers and pushing him away with a strength that took the Marchwarden by surprise. "I want only for his happiness!" The healer's eyes flashed adamant and steel, hard in their resolve and frigid in their bearing. The softness of his voice belied a viper's venom beneath. "It is _your_ name he cries so wretchedly in the night, yet it falls to _me _to weave some palatable excuse as to why you do not attend him, because giving him the truth of it is too cruel!" He erupted in a bitter bark at the infuriating irony, a shard of pottery slicing his thumb as he bent to pick up the scattered pieces. "In all our years of friendship, I have never once lied to him. And now I must, and my lies are on _your_ behalf. Speak not to me of pride!"

Galion straightened him self, took a breath. His gaze trained narrowly on Elemmakil.

"For all your battle glory, and all your storied bravery, you hide from him like a craven." He dropped the broken bowl into a waste bin and wiped his wet and bloodied hands on his apron. "I may not have his love, Elemmakil, but youare unworthy of it."


	15. Chapter 15

Haldir felt as though he were swimming through mud. The effort of pushing through the haze of pain toward consciousness was nigh impossible at times. Trapped in a twilight realm of vision and dream, he strained to understand distant echoes and make his voice heard. This dreamscape was often terrifying and strange and always beyond his comprehension. A flickering scene played out across closed eyelids again and again, and in it, he had plunged into the frigid Celebrant, was sped away toward the confluence of the Anduin where the mighty river would pull his body out to sea. Each breath filled his lungs with icy water and he struggled against the sharp, stabbing pain. He screamed for Elemmakil, and the Marchwarden turned, looked about, but never seemed to see him. As the cold overtook him, he would cry out again, but Elemmakil was now a mere pinpoint in the distance and could not save him. Another voice came to him then, soft yet resonant, the sound of comfort and safety. He could never make out the words, but the cold would subside and the rushing waters would vanish, leaving him in the black folds of soft, dreamless sleep.

After many days, his nightmares abated, voices became louder and more distinct, and the darkness was no longer an impenetrable wall. He became more aware of the constant throb and ache in his chest. Slowly, he understood he had been injured, that he was not asleep so much as entranced, his body requiring the stillness of this stupor to heal. He resisted the urge to force wakefulness, to rebel against the call of sleep, for although his body demanded requiescence, his mind was restless.

When at last he stumbled back into consciousness, first one eye and then the other opened slowly and cautiously blinked. Even dim candlelight was harsh for one grown accustomed to total darkness. His limbs felt heavy and unwieldy, and an experimental attempt to move them required far more effort than he could muster. His chest still radiated pain from the inside out. Despite unknown days locked in torpor, he remained weak, and exhaustion greater than any he had ever known bore down on him with the inexorable weight of a sea-wave.

He turned his head on his stiff neck and focused on the long line of an extended leg. His eyes traveled its length to regard its owner, asleep and contorted uncomfortably in a straight-backed chair. Flexing a wrist and stretching tired fingers, the very tips connected with the sleeper's knee. Even at that forceless touch, Galion's eyes flew wide, his body immediately alert and crouching at Haldir's side.

"Oh blessed Eru, you are awake!"

Haldir grunted groggily. "I feel like I have been run through on a spit." His voice was little more than a rasp.

Galion stroked his hair frenetically, overbright eyes beaming down with fondness that warmed him to his core. What ill feelings the healer had borne vanished in the wake of Haldir's injury, supplanted by solemn oaths that he would cherish Haldir's union with the Marchwarden if the Valar would see fit to make Haldir once again hale enough to enjoy it. "Not a spit but an arrow," he laughed, his voice thick with emotion. "We feared losing you... I know not what I would have done…" His words choked off and he laid a spate of kisses across the warden's brow before rushing into the hall to dispatch an apprentice for Orophin and Rúmil.

"Your brothers sat with you every day they were not on watch. Rúmil especially feared for you. Do you remember what happened?"

Concentration pinched Haldir's face and he slowly shook his head. "Not in full. I recall that he and I accompanied Elemmakil to confront some men. There was a wounded boy... I recall naught else."

Galion detailed the story in full, and watched a wave of coldness break over Haldir's features. He had fought side by side with Elendil's warriors and had always dealt fairly with the men he met on his travels, but these men had chosen not to deal fairly with him. They were a race of cruel cowards if they could so readily commit rape and murder for such paltry gain as a few horses and coins. He tacitly vowed that the next men he met would not receive the benefit of his doubt.

But vows could be put aside for another day. Struggling against tide pulling at his lids, he succumbed again to sleep ere even his brothers arrived to celebrate his waking. But long into the night, they sat at his side and praised the Valar, who saw fit to keep their eldest brother safe in the Golden Wood.

* * *

Dawn came, and with it the telltale growl of a stomach too long empty. Strength, however, would require more time, as would stamina, Haldir discovered much to his chagrin. Muscles that had lain dormant while his wounds healed trembled in exertion simply holding a full bowl of broth. In frustration, he abandoned his spoon and brought the rim of the bowl to his lips, so bold were his body's cries for nourishment.

When his attentive friend mopped a trickle of broth from his chin, he peered up sheepishly, unhappy with such nursing. A crooked grin, then, from Galion: "You will have your strength again soon,_gwador_."

"Not soon enough for my liking." Haldir's eyes continued to dart eagerly to the empty doorway, but the form he sought did not fill its frame. Finally, unable to bear it, he asked.

"Did he come?"

The healer stalled. "He …had to return to the borders, but…"

"Galion."

Eyes and mouth closed, the healer's face tensed.

"You are a poor liar, friend. Tell me: did he come?"

Galion's eyes were soft on his, radiating pity and concern. "Once."

Haldir nodded and was silent, his disappointment too great for words.

* * *

Haldir's recovery was not complete for some time more, but upon waking each morn, he found more of his old strength returned. Still, Elemmakil did not come to him. At long last, Galion pronounced him fit to return to his home, and shortly thereafter, to return to duty. Yet no grey-eyed, red-cloaked visitor came to call. Each day of this abandonment alternately infuriated and devastated him; one minute, he found himself silently railing against such base treatment, the next stilling the quivering chin that threatened to give way to shameful tears. Finally, he could stand the silence no longer, and at nightfall, he set out for the Marchwarden's _talan._

A long pause met his knock. Haldir's stomach dropped. Unto the very last, he had hoped that he had somehow been mistaken, that he had misread his lover's absence; had the door been thrown wide at that moment, revealing a face of avid concern or even repentant sorrow, he would have accepted it—even embraced it—without question. But the uneager greeting was simply another blow to be borne.

The candlelight cast a bronze halo around the Marchwarden's hair and occasionally reflected silver as it glinted on the coin in his fingers. He rubbed it absently, the pad of his thumb idly caressing the face, and Haldir remembered its heft in his hand, and how he had unwittingly provoked his lover's ire when he had once dared touch it, that sacred, shining relic of a realm that seemed more mythic than real. There was something in Elemmakil's face this night, some expression, some emotion, that Haldir could not identify. A palpable frost separated them, like the unexpected chill that blackens and withers early blossoms overnight.

The Marchwarden's cloak hung on its peg behind the door. He sat at his desk in loose breeches and a simple linen tunic, wishing the mantle of duty could be shed and hung up so readily as a uniform. But it clung to him as a skin, a part of him he could no more take off and set aside than his own limbs. He gestured for Haldir to sit, and they stared at one another in awkward silence that stretched far too long.

"I have been cleared for duty by the healers. I had hoped I might depart with the next patrol. I have been too long idle."

The Marchwarden frowned and shook his head. "That is but two days hence. I would not have you tax yourself so soon. Tathalion will lead out a group in a fortnight and you will go with him."

A heartbeat… two…

"I would rather follow you."

Elemmakil's jaw twitched. "Is Tathalion any less worthy of your allegiance than I?"

Abashed, Haldir shook his head, but his anger returned then, and with it the twisting ache of betrayal and disappointment.

"Why did you not come?"

Elemmakil looked away. He knew his absence could never be justified. He knew it had been cruel, that Haldir had done nothing, ever, to merit such shabby treatment, but he knew as well that to touch that insensate face, to run his hands over grey flesh that was alternately fever-hot and cold as a tomb would have shattered him.

He had not known a moment's peace since Haldir's injury. Ecthelion visited him nightly in his dreams, fierce and silent, staring at him with grim disapprobation, shattered arms hanging in obscene angles, sodden hair plastered like living shadow over the planes of his face. And then the visage of one beloved would shift and stir, hair blanching to pale ivory, grey eyes turning blue, turning blind, rolling backward, and became another beloved then, buckling at the knees with his head thrown back as if to beseech the sky: _Why? Why?_ Every night he would run to one lover or the other, but never could he reach either one. Again and again, Haldir died in Elemmakil's dreams, died waiting for Elemmakil to save him when he could not. Each night he would awake in twisted, sweat-soaked sheets and silence, the scream of horror strangled in his throat, the taste of Haldir's blood so fresh and metallic in his mouth that he feared he would retch from it.

After the dream, sleep was lost to him, and he would pace the length of his talan in restless misery, as if the momentum of his slow strides was all that kept the flame of his _fea_ alight.

_I did not come because I could not; my heart would have broken. _

"There were many demands on my time and I could not. You slept and healed. You would not have noticed my presence even had I come." Oh, but those words sounded cruel and false!

Haldir's eyes narrowed, his still gaunt face coloring with hurt and umbrage. His stiff limbs longed to hold his absent lover and thrash him in equal measure.

"And once I awoke? I would have noticed your presence then, would I not?" His tone was hurt, bitter. "Still you did not come."

Elemmakil did not answer.

"What have I done, Elemmakil? If you find me lacking, why not say so? If there is something I fail to give you, some fashion in which I do not please you, pray tell it and I will see it rectified." There was pleading in his voice, naked desperation that shamed Elemmakil to hear as much as it did Haldir to give it voice.

"No, Haldir. You have done nothing," he sighed. _You have done nothing but show me that my regard for you will be my end_, his inner voice screamed. _You have done nothing but show me that all I feared shall come to pass, and I will be as powerless to save you as I was to save_ him.

Haldir approached the Marchwarden with a trepidation he had not felt since their first harried coupling now many years gone. His stomach revolted, shuddered, caught and twisted in battling tides of rage and despair.

"If I have done nothing, then why do you forsake me?"

Elemmakil pinched the bridge of his nose wearily, resignation settling on his brow. Fortifying his resolve as best he could, he spoke his bitter words plainly and firmly.

"I cannot give you what it is you desire, Haldir." He fixed his gaze solidly on the stunned face of his paramour. "It is beyond my measure." He rose and crossed to the window, the landscape of branch, lantern and _telain_ providing ephemeral respite from Haldir's anguished features.

"When I donned the red cloak, I made an oath to my King, my people, that I would protect them by every means at my disposal unto my very life. I made an oath to my men that I would lead them into battle and, Valar willing, out of it." He turned back to Haldir, maintaining the distance between them. "With that oath came responsibilities and sacrifices. By assuming my position, I bound myself to my duty only, forswearing a bond with any other." He took a breath. "I have allowed too many liberties between us.

"We are soldiers. We have chosen to serve, and with service comes the possibility… no, the _probability_…of battle, and injury, and death. When we are assailed, it is I who bear responsibility for those who would sacrifice themselves for this realm. Each elf who would forfeit his life is as precious as the next, and I am derelict in my duties if I weigh my lover's life more heavily than the life of another. Yet how can I not? I am placed in an untenable position!"

He governed himself, knowing that his excited delivery only served to inflame Haldir and worsen the situation. "Haldir, I cannot afford to worry about you in the heat of battle. You are a distraction, and that makes you a danger."

Unspoken lay the crux of his fear: that should Haldir fall, a slow death from grief would be his guerdon. But beyond that, in the tenebrous corners of his weary soul, another fear lingered, indistinct and immaterial as a wraith, a spectre of guilt and treason subtle as fog and bitter as gall: to allow one into his heart would be to force another out of it, to lose that final, tenuous connection. To unlock that door and give another entry to that darkened cloister he had guarded for so long would be to feel Ecthelion die again, and this time by his own hand. The silver coin warmed slowly against his palm and his fingers tightened around it. He leaned against the expanse of trunk that formed the inner wall of his talan searching for guidance in a source older and larger and stronger than he.

"I watched you take a lethal wound, and in that instant, all I could think of was you. Not myself, not Rúmil, not the rest of my patrol… I thought of you alone. Could you have forgiven me if your brother had died through my negligence, because I wept over your body and did not tend to my duty? It is unthinkable." He sighed, tired and heart-sore. "Love is duty's bane, Haldir. I told you long ago that ere all else, we were brothers-in-arms. This is _all_ we must be."

"Cannot love abide with duty?" Haldir gently entreated, crossing to Elemmakil. "In all these years have we not managed it?" His broad hand rested above Elemmakil's heart, which ached to the point of breaking in his chest. They had never, in all their years, spoken of love. Some words were as sharp as any sword and as barbed as any arrow.

"I fear they cannot, and I have not the fortitude to test it."

Haldir pulled away, paced the floor with one hand raking roughly through his pale hair. "My father loved my mother. I daresay my brothers and I are fair proof of that! Would you tell me now that my father was derelict in his duties for his marital bond?" He had found his footing now, and used his words to gain momentum. "When he fell on the Dagorlad, did you find him remiss for his love of family?"

"You test my patience, _Guilinion_," the Marchwarden growled. "You know I would never dishonor your father. But as you have called him forth, think on this: where is your mother that he so loved? She walks no more on Arda; for all the love they bore one another, the loss of him diminished her and drove her out of her very home. Even your love was not enough to keep here."

The words fell cruel as a blow, but still Elemmakil pressed on. "Do not forget it was _I_ who bore your father's body from the field when he fell and _I_ who endured the sound of your grief in my heart for years to follow. Do you not recall the depth of your mourning? Have you forgotten how many nights I held you while you howled that your heart was breaking?" His voice tightened, broke. He turned away. "For me, those memories are all too plain."

He drew up his resolve and squared himself to Haldir, assuming the posture of a captain, not of a conflicted lover.

"Iluvatar gifts us with a life eternal, and there are but two ways that gift can be taken from us. I will risk death in battle as it is my sworn duty, but I will not gamble with a death from grief when I have the option not to, nor should you. We have dallied together for too long, you and I."

Haldir's face registered shock, then fury. "Was that all this has been, then? A _dalliance_?" He was almost blind in his ire, spitting out the words that burned like fire on his tongue. "Was I no more to you than a mere bed-treat?"

"No! I do not deny more has passed between us, but you have known from the start that I offered neither exclusivity nor permanence. You have ever been free to treat with any you wished."

Haldir's lip curled in disgust. How easily he was dismissed! "In all these years I have taken few others to my bed, and then only at your behest. I want no others, and would not seek them had you not all but pushed me into their arms!" Emboldened, he stepped close, the warmth of his body radiating, passing through Elemmakil's shirt, the familiar scent of his skin filling Elemmakil's nostrils. The Marchwarden's hands involuntarily twitched, treacherous fingers desperate to grab, to stroke.

"Though you speak of sending me to other beds, I know you to be constant," the younger quietly rebutted. "You may have treated with others in my absence, but I know full well I have been the only one to warm your bed since my return. If you do not share my feelings, why is it you no longer seek out others yourself?"

Haldir had, of course, stumbled upon the truth: no, he had not taken others to his bed for many years, likely longer than even Haldir knew, finding himself well satisfied by and with his younger lover. And though he had sought companionship in the long years of Haldir's travels, hoping the taste of another in his mouth would quench his thirst for this galadhel, that the violent plunge into tight heat—that singular pleasure he had denied them both—would prove more potent than the less intimate pleasures of hands and mouths. But other bodies, however strong or hot or tight or willing, did not rouse his hunger. They served only to sharpen the taste of Haldir in his memory.

"If you do not share my feelings, why did you not oppose me when I returned to you?" The warden's voice was barely more than a whisper now, his mouth so close…too close…moist breath buffeted warmly against his cheek. "Say it, Elemmakil… Say that your feelings for me run true."

_Nay, Haldir… do not press this…I know what you would say and I beg of you, do not say it! Still your lips before they break me!_

Taking a moment to steady himself, Haldir sought his voice and gathered up the remnants of his pride. He spoke plain and clear. "I love you, Elemmakil. Can you tell me my love is not returned?"

The Marchwarden swallowed hard. "I can no longer allow myself to be distracted from my responsibilities, Haldir…" He was silenced by Haldir's desperate cry.

"You evade my question!"

_Oh, would that you knew my heart, lovely one! _

Silence hung like a fog between them, impenetrable and grey. Haldir had spoken the words aloud, and his heart ceased to beat in the long moment that he awaited Elemmakil's response.

The Marchwarden stood down. For all his fearlessness in battle, for all his prowess with sword and bow, he could not muster the courage to give Haldir the truth of it. Yet honor forbade an expedient denial; speech and silence damned him equally. He turned away from his erstwhile lover, no longer able to bear his probing gaze.

For the first time, Elemmakil, Marchwarden of Lorien, saw himself cloaked in the black mantle of cowardice. Thus he spoke his defeat:

"Go now, Haldir. Please."

Haldir's face contorted with the effort to hold back tears. He could no longer tell if the sharp, stabbing pain he felt was from his wound or from his heart rending itself in his tightening chest.

He let out a sharp, barking laugh. "Brothers-in-arms?" Eyes alight with gutting misery, he glared hard at Elemmakil. "You are cold, my _Captain_."

He slammed the door behind him, the draft extinguishing the guttering candles as if to punctuate his departure. The reverberations shook the very floor of the talan and loosed from his eyes the tears Elemmakil had himself struggled to withhold. In the silence of his darkened room, alone at last, he spoke softly into the void.

_Yes, Haldir… I love you._

* * *

When Haldir returned to his home late that evening, he wasted no time but took a wineskin and retreated to his room, eager to let its contents sooth him. He refused all visitors and did not emerge the next morning, nor did he see his brothers off when their patrol departed on the second day. Disbelief warred with anger, which in turn became shame and a desire to avenge his ravaged pride. Finally, he would simmer in drunken self-pity awaiting the virulent pendulum of his emotions to swing back to anger.

Yet as that second day wore on, he found himself wishing for companionship, tired as he was of his own dismal company. He thought of Galion, myriad images turning over in his mind. He had turned his concerned friend away the previous night, unwilling to speak to anyone at all, rebuffing even his brothers, but certainly his dear healer would comfort him now.

He moved to stand, head spinning, to find that the wine had affected him more than he realized. He steadied himself with a hand on the bedpost before striding out the door and down the long, winding stairway.

No light shone in Galion's windows, so Haldir tracked back toward the infirmary and it was on this path dotted with flickering torches that the two elves met. Galion was shocked by Haldir's appearance, unkempt and red-eyed, his complexion sallow in the aftermath of too much wine and too little food or sleep. His body had too recently recovered from its trauma to be so ill-used.

"Come and let me feed you, unhappy one, and then you must sleep," the healer sighed with vague exasperation. "You will do yourself harm if you continue in this fashion. Time and rest are far better elixirs for wounds of the spirit than drink."

Haldir's mouth curled lazily in a smile. "You are always so good to me, _meldir_." As his arm slipped around the healer's waist, the smile ripened into a leer. "So good…I know you have wanted more from me. Has time diminished your desire?"

Galion stiffened. "The wine speaks for you, methinks."

"The wine but loosens my tongue. Did you not say once that you would hold my heart and treasure it?"

"I daresay it is not your heart that seeks holding and treasuring tonight!" Indignant now, Galion struggled against the uncomfortable embrace. "I will not lower myself to be balm to wounds another has wrought. I am no surrogate, Haldir. You do not seek me for myself, you seek only to assuage your own pain."

"I seek the comfort of my boon companion! I would know the healing touch of your hands again, Galion."

Galion jerked out of Haldir's clutches and tried to move away, but the warden clamped down hard on his wrist. "There are some wounds it is not my duty to heal." He felt the bones shifting painfully under Haldir's stalwart grip. "Unhand me, Haldir. I will not ask you again."

"You were eager to feel my hands in Imladris, wherefore do you refuse them now?" Haldir's fingers tightened and, no longer fit for subtleties, he pulled Galion toward him with brute force. He did not see the fist as it flew, only felt the rattling of his teeth as his head snapped back and to the right from the blow, his vision turning all to white the moment it connected with his jaw. Releasing Galion, both hands flew up instinctively to guard his face and the healer leaped away.

Galion's face reflected rage and disgust, even pity. But his eyes, grey as storm clouds, glittered with pure hurt.

"You dishonor me. You dishonor _us_." He turned on his heel and strode away as quickly as his frayed dignity would allow, leaving Haldir with his sensibilities returned by a ringing blow, in pain and horrified by his actions, alone on the shadowed path.

"Wait, Galion!"

Stumbling forward, hand to his jaw, he managed but a few strides when he collided with an unyielding form.

"Let him go."

It was Taurnil, but gone was the ever-present grin, lopsided and charming. Tonight he wore a face of cold displeasure. In that instant, Haldir felt as if all the wine had dissipated in his veins leaving him utterly sober and viciously aware of the full impact of his indiscretion.

"Ah, blessed Eru… Taurnil…I have sorely erred!"

The look on his old friend's face turned his innards to water. Never had he seen him so wroth. A wave of shame rolled over him so strong that for a moment he thought he would be sick. Taurnil pulled him roughly to his feet.

"You disgrace yourself. Let us get you home ere more damage is done."

Haldir said not a word and let Taurnil push him roughly towards his talan. Once inside, he sank to his bed with his face in his hands, mortified beyond anything he had ever known. When he raised his swimming head, he was met with his friend's furious face.

"Your grievance lies with the Marchwarden yet you do injury to the one who holds you closest in his heart." Haldir opened his mouth to speak but words faltered on his lips. Taurnil's eyes warned against further interruptions. "You are many things, friend, but I never knew you cruel.

"He contents himself to remain ever second in your regard and you humiliate him by using his love for you against him. You would have done less harm had you put him to your sword!"

"I know," Haldir whispered, his voice ragged. "It was unworthy. I have no excuse. I know his pain full well."

Moonlight filtered through the windows, projecting the outline of branches across his wall. It seemed to him as if hundreds of bark-scaled, knotted fingers wagged furiously at him, even the trees scourging him with silent disdain. They flashed angry shadows over Taurnil, who stood as tall and firm as a Mallorn in the darkened room.

"Mark me, Haldir, touch him again unbidden and you will taste my wrath, sworn brother or no."

Haldir knew the elf had never been more grave about anything in his life. His stomach roiled dismally as he mustered a nod, knowing his word had been deemed worthless. The muffled sound of Taurnil's cloak snapping around his ankles cut the silence in the brief moment before the floor boards shuddered under a slammed door. It seemed an age before the sound of footsteps on winding stairs diminished into a low tap.

He sat in sullen silence for the duration of the night. He could not bring himself to move.

* * *

Long strides dispelled anger, control regained with every step. Taurnil listened to the song of the breeze and let it cool his heated skin. Down the path below, a light still burned in Galion's window, and the low voice beyond the door bidding him enter bore no trace of sleep. Taurnil said nothing as he crossed the threshold and moved to an empty chair, eyes sighting first the sorrowful face and then the tapered fingers gingerly rubbing swollen knuckles. Galion watched him enter and smiled balefully from his seat beneath the window.

"Never in my life have I laid a hand on another in anger, and the first time I do, it must be him."

"You gave him fair warning, which is more than I would have done. And I likely would not have stopped at a single blow."

"Yes, you would have. It is not in your nature to injure your friends, even when they have angered you. Haldir is not himself. He is drunk. He is in thrall to his emotions."

"He would have you on your knees like a common whore for the sake of his _emotions_! Breath of Manwë, Galion! He would take you against your will and still you defend him!" Taurnil cried out in frustration.

Galion merely shook his head. "He was distraught. He would have done me no harm."

A vase filled with asphodel jumped and rattled as the warden slammed his fist on the table. "No harm? Why then did he not unhand you when you asked? Whence the necessity to strike him if he would have done you no harm? Answer me that, Galion?"

The healer met his eyes ruefully but said nothing. What could he say? Taurnil looked hurt. When he spoke again, his voice was low and mournful.

"Why, Galion?"

"I cannot explain it. He holds my heart. Whether he wills it or no, he holds my heart."

Taurnil looked away, then nodded. After a moment, he stood to leave.

"Will you not heal yourself?"

"I will. I thought I should savor the ache a while longer as I do not intend to feel its kind again. It feels like penance."

"If you have need of anything…"

"…Thank you. You are a good friend to me, Taurnil."

The sadness in the warden's smile went unseen in the dark as he departed.

"I know."


	16. Chapter 16

Twilight burgeoned in the garden, and the many hues of green variegated with splashes of bright color muted into a uniform tenebrous shade as Anor's rays sank below the horizon. Already, the Eves had taken to calling this "Galadriel's garden," though the Lady was not in residence. King Amroth himself had commissioned the bower, had drawn the plans for the neatly manicured beds and smooth pathways that serpentined to decorative bridges spanning trilling streams. It was a masterwork, emerging gently from natural curves of the forest and then seamlessly reintegrating itself back into the wood, giving it an air of lush formality without ever overriding the innate majesty of the wild wood.

But the King had been distracted from this task—in truth, had been distracted from many tasks—by the mysterious object of his affections who, even now, kept her distance from Caras Galadhon and any other populated place. She flitted like an ephemeral sunbeam, dappling the distant edges of the forest with her elusive presence. Few understood the King's beguilement, least of all his advisors who had daily railed at him to set aside this love that seemed destined to go unrequited and return his attentions to matters of state.

Rather, the advisors had daily railed, until Amroth used his royal prerogative to simply disappear for months on end, chasing his cagey maiden and suing for her love.

In his absence, his advisors had come to depend on Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel for guidance as they assumed the duties their King had abdicated. The Lord and Lady came often from Imladris to Lothlorien, and were both graciously and gratefully welcomed. On her last sojourn, Galadriel had taken it upon herself to oversee the completion of the garden, which, like so many other things in and about the royal city, had been left half-finished.

And now, verdant and immaculately maintained, Galadriel's garden had become a popular place for Lothlorien's populace to stroll or convene with friends. Thus it was that the younger sons of Guilin, with friends and mates in tow, came thence to linger in felicitous fellowship and observe from a safe distance the ritual which had become a regular occurrence of late.

"Watch!" Orophin announced in a hushed tone, craning his head at the scene unfolding behind him. "You can see the very moment the hunter moves in for the kill!"

The elves chuckled and watched surreptitiously as another of their number hovered near the youngest in the latest crop of wardens. He circled predatorily, lured his prey with a gentle hand on the back, or an arm tossed in ostensible camaraderie around a shoulder that lingered just a little too long. He disarmed with bright-eyed laughter, and soon the space between them closed. A hand stealthily moving to rest on a hip marked the springing of the trap.

"And… it is done!"

With impressive synchronicity, Haldir turned as Orophin spoke and led his latest conquest out of the gardens while the group stifled their collective laughter.

"I daresay tonight's dish is a tender piece." Rumíl quipped. "I did not know our brother's tastes ran to veal!"

"As far as Haldir is concerned, old enough to heave a sword is old enough to sheathe a sword!"

Alquonís, happily ensconced in Orophin's lap, masked her chuckle in an affronted titter and he ducked, though not quickly enough to escape her swatting hand.

"You are unkind! Your brother succors himself in his own fashion. Do you begrudge him what little solace he can find?"

Orophin caught her hand and clasped it in his own, the matching bands of silver on their fingers still lustrous in the low light. "Nay, dear heart." He touched her gently, reverently, yet there was sublime pride in his eyes when he looked upon her and twined her slender digits with his own. "I simply fear that leaving a trail of discarded bed-treats in his wake will only attract more misery to him in the long run."

His betrothed eyed him wryly. "Such concern from one who left quite a trail of his own bed-treats in days not so long past!"

He smirked at her, wrapping his arm snugly around her waist. "Yes, and I am made to suffer for my past transgressions daily. I pray my brother suffers a kinder fate!"

* * *

The warmth of a mouth drawing him steadily toward release set his head spinning, temporarily distracting him from the void left by the absence of his lover and his best friend. A hand buried deep in satiny blonde locks twisted with inadvertent roughness, enough to elicit a choked yelp. He loosed his grip and let his knuckles slip over the other's cheek in a conciliatory stroke as he continued to casually thrust in and out, his hips rocking in primal delight.

His orgasm began to rise in him like sap through a tree, his limbs involuntarily tightening in preparation. With a grunt, he pulled free from the willing mouth, gripping himself hard at the root to forestall his completion.

The young warden looked up in confusion and concern, but Haldir smiled at him, drawing him up from his knees and onto the bed, meeting his mouth in a devouring kiss. He tasted the bitter precursor to his own seed on his partner's tongue. With one hand, he adeptly loosened the laces of the other elf's breeches and tugged them down over his hips, pulling until they crumpled on the floor with the rest of their discarded clothing.

The elf before him was young and pale with the slim musculature of one just stumbling into maturity, his body withy and fit from sword work and calisthenics, but lacking even the smallest blemish that the older wardens wore as testament to long years of rough service. He was a beauty, as gregarious and vocal in bed-play as Haldir had found him during the off-hours of their last patrol, when he had first come into the elder warden's notice. Little effort had been necessary to rouse his interest in a night's company, and he had proven an enthusiastic partner. Now, stretched across the bed, his arousal-darkened length standing eagerly in a nest of golden curls, he evinced a charming readiness to entertain Haldir in any fashion requested.

With a masterful hand, Haldir fisted his bedmate, watched his hips jerking in fervent response, readying him with his fingers before tacitly making his intentions clear by rolling the young galadhel to his stomach. The warden needed no further prompting; he raised himself to his hands and knees and arched his back like a cat, presenting himself unabashedly to Haldir.

The tight heat of a body gripping his erection shuttled his mind into blankness, and he reveled in the pure physical sensations of lust. The warden's voluble cries erupted in stark contrast to Haldir's mannered reserve; a grunt, a moan, perhaps a whispered word of enticement in a peaked ear in the moments before his partner bucked and brayed in the throes of release, but never the bestial growls and whines he once freely loosed on Elemmakil's bed.

But if the elf in his bed tonight was perturbed by the laconic nature of the elder warden, he did not show it. Rather, he dropped his chest to the bed and tilted his hips higher, pushing back wantonly against Haldir's shaft, inviting him to thrust hard and fast, and Haldir was happy to oblige.

"Touch me, _meldir_… please touch me…" The young voice was pinched with the desperation of arousal. "I am so close!"

Haldir moved a hand between the elf's legs to catch the heavy stalk bobbing and swaying with the force of his thrusts, and with a few deft strokes, brought his partner to a raucous climax. His own, pleasant but barely voiced, came shortly after.

When Haldir collapsed on the bed, the warden insinuated himself under Haldir's arm and lay his head on his chest. He reached for a lock of Haldir's hair and coyly laced it through his fingers.

"The hour grows late. Might I pass the night here with you?"

Haldir shifted awkwardly. "It would be best if you returned to your own quarters. I find I do not sleep well with others in my bed."

The youngster heard the words unspoken. "Did I not please you?"

"Aye, you pleased me well, but as a warden, duty is my mistress, and none come before her. You understand, I wager. It is a pleasure to revel with our brothers-in-arms, but nothing more should come of it, if we truly desire to give duty her due."

"Yes, of course," the elf responded, unconvinced but not bitter. He was young, and while easily smitten, he was content enough only to share a passing interlude, curious to taste the favors of many of his fellows. He slipped quickly from the bed and dressed himself. Haldir pulled on a robe and escorted him to the door, relieved that he had not sulked. The elf turned at the threshold to behold his erstwhile bedmate one last time.

"Perhaps we will share another night, should you find yourself of a mind for it."

Haldir smiled gently. "Perhaps."

The young warden left, and Haldir retreated to his bed alone, deciding that was not tired so much as he was simply weary.

* * *

After the incident with Haldir, Galion had consoled himself in his own fashion, taking extra shifts in the infirmary to fill his days, and of late spending his evenings in the company of one of Amroth's scribes, whose hands proved near as deft as his own. The dogged attention to detail that served this ellon so well in the exacting art of illuminating the King's manuscripts translated delightfully when applied to other, more robust, arts. No great spark of romance had flared between them, but cordial conversation and mutual attraction held their own charms, however impermanent.

A note had come from said scribe that afternoon, begging Galion's presence for a late night promenade through the new gardens. He had accepted, but only after chuckling to himself at the elf's insistence on such formal etiquette when they were both well aware that the true purpose of any meeting held between them after dark was decidedly less austere than a casual stroll.

Returning to his abode from the infirmary, he found something hanging on his door handle. A braided leather strap with length enough only to gird a child, well-worn and stiffened with age. Lashed to it was a sheath embossed with intricate knotwork. From butt to point, the knife within barely surpassed the length of his palm. The hilt was so narrow that he thought his fingers might wrap twice around it. The blade shone bright, lovingly oiled and polished, and when he flicked the pad of his thumb across the edge he found it dull, not from lack of use, but because it had never been sharpened.

When Guilin had commissioned the little knife, a gift for Haldir's begetting day, Faelas had drawn her lips in a tight line. She had not been eager to have the tools of a soldier put in her child's hands so young. "Little hands are for grasping poppets," she had pleaded with her husband. "He will come to your ways soon enough, there is no need to hurry him."

But Faelas had known even then that it had been futile, that Guilin's blood ran stronger in her little one's veins than her own, and that he was born for soldiering no matter how much she loathed the shedding of blood. Make it dull, she had at last conceded, and Guilin had done so; he knew that Haldir was brash and careless in the way of all youngsters whose attention flits hither and yon, and that, coupled with his impatience for mastery and constant attempts to emulate his father, made him more apt to accidentally injure himself than perhaps another of similar years would be.

Though Guilin had taught him how to properly handle it (_"You must be ever vigilant with your weapons, and always respect the blade, for it cannot tell friend from foe"_), he could not resist brandishing it in Galion's company, wildly pantomiming the many ways in which he would fell an orc or challenge a wild beast. Galion had watched patiently but with little interest. If Haldir bore his father's blood so evidently, likewise Galion carried the blood of his mother, and in the manner of most healers, he had little interest in the workings of weapons, save only to understand how they wrought their harm so that he might later undo it. All the same, he had been content to watch Haldir thrust and parry with shadows, infinitely certain that his friend could save them from any manner of harm.

Galion remembered how Haldir had told him the story of the vigil he kept at his bedside while he lay insensate from the brutal onset of his healing powers, how he had whispered in Galion's unhearing ear the promise of the little knife in exchange for his waking.

And now, the little treasure Haldir had long ago bartered lay small and cold in his hands. Galion understood it for what it was: an admission of guilt, a plea for forgiveness, a pointed reminder that the friendship that now lie in tatters was as dear to him and as sorrowfully missed as it had been all those years ago.

With his stomach in knots, he went in search of Haldir.

* * *

Haldir was not difficult to find. He was in his talan, seemingly waiting for Galion's arrival. His look was sorrowful, and yet this contrition only irked Galion, and his words fell with careless cruelty from his mouth.

"When I was ill, you offered to trade this token for my health. You could not part with it then, though I knew naught of that, but you offer it to me once again. Have I grown so high in your esteem, or has your little knife only lessened in value over time?"

Haldir winced visibly at the bitter rhetoric. "You hone the thing to an edge it lacked when I was small. It draws blood now, and I see you would cut me with it."

Afraid that he might hurl it, Galion quickly let the knife drop to the table in its sheath.

"_You_ came to _me_ in Imladris." He snapped churlishly. "I did not seek you out, I did not demand anything of you."

"Nor did you turn me away."

Galion released a deep breath. "No, I did not. Nor did I say it was unwelcome." The wall was cold against his back as he shifted his weight against it.

"You came to me wracked with concern. Do you not remember how afraid you were the night before you departed? How ill-used you felt by Elemmakil even then? I wanted to give you ease. For all the love I bore you, I wanted to assuage those fears and see you sally forth with pride and courage."

Sensing his imminent chastisement, Haldir hung his head. "I know your motives were pure."

"But you would make of them something base! Forcing yourself on me, drunk, while recalling that night took one of my most treasured memories and tarnished it with crass lust. I have long made do with the leavings of your attention, yet you would take the one moment you were fully mine and wield it merely to avenge your insulted pride."

Haldir shut his eyes. "I know not what to say, Galion… I will not insult you with excuses. I only ask that you forgive a wounded fool who erred grievously."

Galion turned away. How could two emotions war so deeply within him? He wanted throw his arms around Haldir's shoulders and beg the whole incident be set aside and forgotten… yet another part of him wished to see Haldir hurt and humiliated as he had been, wanted to scream that he would be taken for granted no longer.

"Understand, Haldir, that my loyalty and my respect are to be earned, not assumed. If you imagine me to be a well of limitless tolerance, let me swiftly disabuse you of that notion; my tolerance does indeed have limits, and you have sorely tried them."

"Aye. I know. Just tell me there is a chance to regain your trust."

The healer remained silent, looking away as if to ponder Haldir's query and feeling a cold flicker of satisfaction flaring as he left Haldir to twist in the noose of anxiety in wait of his answer.

"In time, yes."

Relief was instantly evident in the slight loosening of Haldir's shoulders and the creep of color into his cheeks.

"It grows late. Will you not stay?"

"No," Galion told him, but more gently than he had spoken before.

"I mean only for sleep! I would gladly give you my bed and take my bedroll to the floor…"

"I cannot, Haldir." He took a breath. "I have a prior engagement."

Haldir's face fell, and he grew uncommonly flustered. Galion found, to his discomfort, that the twinge of guilt he felt at Haldir's dismay came in tandem with an equal measure of malevolent pleasure.

"I see… well, then," Haldir recovered, "I shall not delay you further."

He stood to walk his companion to the door feeling that things between them had been only partially resolved. His gaffe had not been beyond Galion's ability to forgive and their friendship, while strained, might yet be restored, yet already there were others who had taken priority in Galion's attentions. He counseled himself to have patience and let the healer return to him in his own time, and then he frowned. Patience was a quality he lacked almost in like degree as foresight and humility. But patience was all that was left to him, and though it was something he yet lacked, he would perforce learn it soonest. He went to bed, once more alone, sorely missing his friend.


	17. Chapter 17

**Lothlorien, Third Age 1040**

It seemed an eternity before Galion emerged from the chamber, and all the while, Haldir had worried and paced, worried and paced, the sound of cries from within rising from low moans to high-pitched squalling. When at last the door swung wide and the healer emerged wiping blood from his hands, his knees nearly buckled in grateful relief.

"Well?"

The healer beamed. "A son. A fine, healthy son."

A whoop of joy, and Haldir launched himself at the healer and spun him around, laughing. In time, Orophin, too, emerged, his eyes bright with tears and his face emblazoned with a dazed smile.

"He is perfect."

Ethuilion he was called, for he was indeed the son of Spring, born as the first tender shoots flowered on the vine. Alquonís was lovely in her fecundity, her tumbling locks darkened to the color of ripe wheat, her cheeks touched with a becoming blush. Haldir knelt at the bedside, watching with reverent awe as the tiny babe rooted blindly at her breast, and stroking sweat-damped hair gently from her brow.

"How do you fare, _muinthel_?"

Alquonís's beatific smile was lit from within. "Tired. Blissful."

"You are as dear to me as the kin of my blood. Your son shall be as my own. I swear to you, Alquonís, that I shall do all in my power to see him grow happy and healthy and strong."

"I am honored that our babe will be so well loved." Her slight fingers stretched and arched toward Haldir's hand and he clasped it tenderly. "I only wish that you had a love of your own that you might know the bliss I share with your brother."

Blue eyes gently closed. "It is not my lot. Our fates are apportioned each in their own way, and I have made my peace with mine. I hope you do not think me lonely… I have ample camaraderie, and… more …when I so choose."

This, at least, was true: Haldir's bed was rarely cold, though he had taken the Marchwarden's parting words to heart: love was duty's bane, and therefore he sought it not. His trysts were short in duration, a season here, perhaps a year there. It was said that some, younger, brasher elves, placed bets amongst themselves as to how long they could hold the warden's attention, and it was also said that these wagers rarely paid out. Indeed, the only time his bed was empty was in the dead of night, for he never allowed his partners to encamp in his quarters, nor did he pass his nights in his companions' beds. Too easy, he reasoned, to mistake physical proximity with intimacy, to ascribe a deeper level of devotion when waking in a warm tangle of limbs.

Often, this proved a bone of contention with some partners who, even after being liberally plied with Haldir's well-practiced politesse, watched him roll from the bed and casually dress after what they perceived as a fulsome coupling. He mentally catalogued numerous stock phrases with which to soothe the ruffled feathers of those who felt that they were entitled to a larger share of his affection, but smooth words did not always suffice, and when slighted lovers took a stand and delivered Haldir with an ultimatum, he greeted their imminent departure with a resigned shrug and well wishes.

Even with bedmates seeking no attachments, liaisons were not long-lived. After a span of some months, a year or two at best (and certainly never with any delusions of constancy), they would find themselves curled in sated afterglow with a partner who was deliciously endowed, undeniably skilled at delivering carnal pleasure, and who could be, when he so chose, a delightful conversationalist with a vivid wit and surprisingly well-rounded intellect…but who was never the least bit forthcoming about his thoughts or feelings. They would ultimately determine that a tongue that went utterly silent at the first sign of a conversation tacking towards the personal, no matter how hot or clever it proved in service to other matters, held only limited appeal. These relationships died their own natural yet civil death with little fanfare. But whether they ended with a handshake or a tantrum, all of Haldir's trysts ended.

"I am not lonely," Haldir said again, though Alquonís had heard him plain the first time. She squeezed his hand, her fingers strong in spite of her fatigue.

"As you say, Haldir."

Ducking his head and clearing his throat softly as he began to stand, he leaned in to kiss Alquonís on her brow, and the warm and velvety head of the babe at suck. "Rest well, _meldis_."

* * *

**Lothlorien, Third Age 1050**

"Away from the water with you, _pen tithen_. I am not of a mind for swimming today."

Ethuilion turned on his small, sturdy legs and ambled away from the stream's edge. His uncle always let him run just a little farther ahead than his ada would, but when the elder elf called for him to stop, he obediently froze mid-stride.

His uncle often took him for long walks or for rides on horseback, pointing out the small animals which ran wild in the wood, or helping him to listen for the heartbeat of the trees, which he could not yet hear, though his uncle had promised that someday soon he would. Today, they had journeyed to a place so deep into the forest and so far from his home (for so it seemed to him) that Ethuilion wondered how they would ever find their way back. Here, moss spread thick as a carpet and cool under his small fingers, and blackberries grew plump for picking. A stream gurgled just beyond, and he shrieked with glee upon seeing fish darting below the sparkling surface. Around him, birch and alder stood straight and slim, and nearby, the low foliage grew dense. Through the bracken and roots he spied a shelter in the thicket.

"Uncle! A fort!"

From his comfortable spot in the lowest crook of a poplar, Haldir smiled down indulgently. He had come to this place yesterday, this clever den of leaf and bough, to cut away the overgrowth and clear out dead branches so that the little brush cave he and Galion once shared would be ready to welcome another intrepid explorer.

"Perhaps there is treasure inside," he hinted, and watched as Ethuilion disappeared under the branches.

"A soldier! There is a soldier here to guard the fort!"

Haldir had seen to that, too, finding the little sentinel still at his post. He had scraped off the lichens clinging to the wood and sharpened the weathered lines of his father's carving with his knife. He had even strung the archer's little bow with a bit of string from his own. The soldier looked quite handsome now, in spite of his years. It looked, he realized now, much like his father.

"Come see, uncle! I wonder who he belongs to."

Swinging with ease from his perch, Haldir landed effortlessly on the ground below just as his nephew scrambled out from the retreat brandishing his new toy.

"Perhaps he belongs to no one. Perhaps he has been standing guard all this time, waiting for a little _ellon_ to take him home."

Overjoyed by this news, the child capered along the banks of the stream with the soldier clutched tightly in his hand, chattering gaily at his mute friend and occasionally to his uncle who lay on his back now at the water's edge with his fingers trailing in the gentle current.

When the light began to gild the leaves, he hoisted the young one up in his arms for the walk home. Soon, lulled by Haldir's rhythmic, rocking steps, Ethuilion's patter trailed off and he rested his head on his uncle's shoulder and fell asleep, his breath falling evenly in moist puffs against Haldir's neck. One hand soon slipped to lay against his heart, the tiny fist loosening in sleep, and the soldier tumbled free. Haldir stopped to retrieve it, but quicker hands had already plucked it up.

"You have a way with the young one," Elemmakil said softly. "He cleaves to you as he does his own father."

He handed the toy to Haldir, who tucked it into his belt. "Well met, Captain."

Elemmakil's face was limned in disappointment. "Even when we are alone you address me only by rank?"

"'Twas was you who sought formality between us," Haldir sniffed, but he found he had no venom left. Perhaps the endearing warmth of Ethuilion's little body gentled him. Perhaps it was simply the passage of so many years; he found of a sudden he wished for peace between them, for some return of the fond regard they once shared.

After delivering Haldir's dozing charge to his mother's arms, they strolled together through the garden paths, watching as clusters of elves hustled by. All of Lothlorien would gather with friends and family this night, the eve of _Tarnin Austa_, in large groups and small, and when the sun finally dipped behind the craggy peaks of Hithaeglir they would seal their lips and observe silence until the first rays of summer dawned, then all the voices in the forest would rise together in song.

"Do you ever wish for a child of your own?"

Haldir chuckled darkly. "Even did I wish for one, no union of mine will ever bear fruit."

"You have never felt the call toward feminine flesh?"

"Nay, I have only ever hungered for my own kind." He looked curiously at the Marchwarden. "I did not know you took women for lovers."

"Does it surprise you? There was a time I sought them exclusively. After Gondolin. It seemed a means to honor my dead companion, to take no other lovers of his gender. But lofty though my design may have been, it is truly the masculine form which draws me, and I took no more women to my bed after leaving Sirion."

Haldir pondered this bit of news. 'Twas not the meat of the admission which struck Haldir so, but the belated apperception that in all the years he had spent at Elemmakil's side, he truly knew little about his erstwhile lover. The Marchwarden had never taken him fully into his confidence. So many of Haldir's questions over the years of their tryst had been met with stony silence or laughingly deflected. Once, this would have angered him, seeing so clearly the impassable ramparts the warrior maintained around himself, but now it only saddened him. Though he had no lover of any consequence, he at least had Galion with which to share his inmost thoughts. Elemmakil, by his own choice, was really and truly alone.

They walked a few paces in a silence that Haldir could not readily define, not exactly companionable, though not discomfiting, yet altogether too intimate. He fumbled awkwardly for conversation.

"How will you welcome the Gates of Summer? You have always made yourself scarce on this night." He saw pain flash across the Marchwarden's face and cursed himself for his insensitivity. Of course a survivor of Gondolin would take no joy in remembering the night his city was sacked!

"I will mark it as I always do, alone. I will recall the fall of my land and the death of my friends and my family. I will in silence atone for my failures."

The profound emptiness in Elemmakil's tone touched Haldir deeply, and he grasped the Marchwarden's hand and led him to a secluded spot away from the garden paths.

"Find you no surcease to your mourning? Even after all this time? And what is this you speak of, atonement? For what must you atone?"

When Elemmakil did not answer, Haldir pulled him gently to the ground so they sat side by side in the quiet thicket, caressed by creeping vines and lush grass. "You have never spoken to me of your life in Gondolin. Will you not speak of it now? Or would you carry your burden in silence all of your days?"

Elemmakil stared into the middle distance. Only with Celeborn, son of another savaged realm, had he been able to speak of his city's fall. Only one who has failed to forestall the destruction of his home could truly understand the weight of that failure on the soul. But Haldir had asked, and tonight, for the first time in more years than he could fathom, and for reasons he could not, he felt compelled to speak.

"You were taught the legend of Gondolin. That is but a small part of the fact. You have been regaled with songs of the bravery of Tuor and of Glorfindel, and of Rog and the Hammer of Wrath… And they deserve all of their accolades, each to the very man. But it was not only the fall of a realm, 'twas the fall of a people, and 'twas not only those whose tributes are sung who fought valiantly and died there

"So many fell with none to mark them. Ingovor, son of Egalmoth, was still two decades shy of his majority when he carried the standard of his House into the fray only to be impaled on his own colors. Where is his song? Or the lament to Olmira, a mere scullion, who stood guard at the door of the House she served with a flaming brand until her skull was cleaved in twain?

"What do they teach you of the women and children of Gondolin? Do the bards sing that for each one of those who escaped, three fell? We cloistered them for safekeeping and in doing so sealed their doom, and for those who could not take up sword as Idril did, a death by burning was the greatest mercy they could wish. Think on that, Haldir! A fate worse than fire awaited those who did not burn! Their cries haunt my sleep to this day.

"And what of my men? What of the men of the First Gate? They are not sung, yet all of them gave their lives. Every single one, and I failed them. I was not at the gate to save them."

Haldir shuddered, absorbing the horrendous story. It was true that, to his mind—to most elven minds—Gondolin was more myth than history. It had taken on the flat colors and gilded words of a bard's tale, the thousands of smaller, personal horrors smoothed away, coalesced into an epic fable. But here, in Elemmakil's eyes, was the unwavering pain and unending guilt of one who lived that fable, and now existed with his soul still scorched by its vicious, indelible memories.

Cautiously, Haldir queried, "Where were you, if not at your gate?"

A sound part sob and part astringent laugh rent the still air of the copse. "I was in the main square with the others of House of the Fountain. Ecthelion, who was my captain, released me from duty so that I might observe the rising of summer with his House. I was preparing for revels while the First Gate fell. When the siege began, I sought to leave the square and go to my men, but Ecthelion would not release me. He ordered me to stay with him. I stayed, and they died. I stayed… and _he_ died. I live every day with the knowledge that I slew my own men through my absence."

Haldir vehemently shook his head. "The fault lies not with you! You followed a direct order. Would you rather know yourself derelict in your duty?"

"_He_ was derelict in his duty!"

A fraught silence followed. Never had the name of Ecthelion been maligned in Haldir's ears, most certainly not by Elemmakil. This urgent fury was new to him, and disorienting. Elemmakil shook from the force of his outburst, and when next he spoke, the taut lines of his body and the clench of his jaw evidenced an inner struggle for control.

"Ecthelion's heart led him in that hour, not his wisdom. He did not let me go to them because he feared for me. He placed my life above theirs. He sacrificed them for my safety."

As the full weight and meaning of this statement revealed itself, Haldir's eyes widened and his jaw fell slack. How could he not have known, not realized, until this moment? So obvious it seemed in hindsight, yet he had never once considered…

"Ecthelion was your lover."

Elemmakil did not nod so much as drop his head as if overcome. He turned and caught Haldir with a countenance so rueful that it threatened to draw tears from Haldir's eyes.

"Do you understand now? Do you understand why I could no longer have you by my side? Because I would have done _anything_ to protect you, even at the expense of another. I cannot repeat his mistake. I will not. Love is treachery, Haldir. There was none more valiant that Ecthelion. _None_. But his love for me became his weakness. I could not have you become mine."

Elemmakil shut his eyes as Haldir wrestled with the implications of this revelation. At long last, he spoke, quietly, in a tone that aimed for airiness but fell short.

"It is no wonder, then, that you broke with me. I cannot hold a candle to the Lord of the Fountain. I am not quite the stuff of legend."

"I never once compared you. I sought you on your own merits. You were spoon-fed tales of the Lord of the Fountain from childhood. To you, he is legend. To me, he was simply Ecthelion. He was simply… my love."

"You took for your love the most fair and most valiant of all the Eldar and you wonder that I find myself lacking? You may not have had it in mind to compare me, but no elf could come after without finding himself eclipsed by that shadow."

"You are every bit as valiant…"

"_Avo_. The time has long passed that your praise might succor my pride." His manner was light, as if he intended a jest, but the sting underlying his blithe delivery could not be entirely hidden.

"I am sorry, Haldir…"

"Peace, Elemmakil," Haldir let out a breath. Was he so callow as to harbor hurt over something so long past? "I am honored that you would speak to me of such a painful time, and I rue that you suffer so greatly still." He studied Elemmakil's face, the deep shadows darkening his eyes, the weary ridge of his brow. "I would not have us remain estranged, old friend."

"Nor would I, _pen neth_. I have missed you, missed your company… Can we not renew our bond of friendship?"

Haldir pushed himself to standing and offered Elemmakil his hand.

"Aye…of course we can. I, too, have longed for your company."

Each clasped the other's forearm in the stalwart grip of fraternity and their eyes locked in mute understanding for a long moment before they pulled together in a tight embrace, and while it was an embrace that encompassed only the fondest regard of brothers, it brought each of them a measure of peace they had not for some time known.

In the gloaming, Haldir and Elemmakil marked their own silent vigil for the Gates of Summer, walking the paths of the wood side by side.

* * *

Elsewhere in the forest, other hearts were bared, and a bewildered king waged his own fruitless battle to claim what he most longed for.

"Come with me, my love…I would give you all that your heart desires… I want you for my queen, to stand by my side!"

"I am no queen, and you cannot give me what my heart desires."

Amroth brought her pale, slim hands to his lips. Her flesh was cool and smooth under his kiss.

"Tell me, then, what must I do to win your love? I would do anything you asked."

Nimrodel looked down at her reflection, rippling and dancing on the surface of the stream, cocked her head and closed her eyes to hear the song of the laughing water. She said nothing more.

* * *

Beyond the borders of Lothlorien, something stirred. A sleeping malice awakened, malevolent and hungry. Eryn Galen was cast in shadow, its green leaves moldering in the murk which insidiously claimed it.

North of the wood, in the dark bowels below Hithaeglir's jagged teeth, a chthonic chorus of dwarven hammers beat a persistent tattoo, each blow delving deeper into the crust of the rock to tap the mithril veins that ran beneath.

Deeper still, another menace lie waiting, and a fire long thought extinguished showed itself merely banked and steadily burning.

For now, the balrog slept. It would not sleep for long.

Chapter Management 


	18. Chapter 18

**Near Lake Evendim, formerly the Kingdom of Arthedain, Third Age 1975**

Haldir cinched the scroll tight to the hawk's leg, released the jess, and the bird took wing. He watched it climb and ride the swift current of the southward wind until it became a distant shadow in his sight.

When he had ridden out from Lorien this time, he had been prepared for violence, but he could not have imagined the brutality that lay ahead. Elemmakil had dispatched him with increasing regularity as the Necromancer's presence in Dol Guldur threatened their cloistered enclave. Now more than ever, the traffic of information was vital to the defense of all the realms, and so it was that Haldir sought news of their enemy's activities in Gondor, in Eriador and the Havens, and in Eryn Galen, which now bore the grim moniker Mirkwood. By the time he reached Imladris by the Old Forest Road bearing ill tidings of giant spiders in the southern reaches of the blighted wood, the northern kingdom of Arthedain had fallen to the forces of Angmar. When Lord Elrond dispatched regiments of swordsmen and cavalry under the legendary captain Glorfindel to avenge the fallen kingdom, Haldir felt honor-bound to offer his sword and ride with them.

The hordes of Angmar had been taken easily enough. They were, after all, merely men, and in the face the well-trained Gondorian forces and the well-tried spears of Lindon they swiftly faltered. When the host of Imladris arrived to add its might, victory on the field had been assured, though bought at dear cost. The plains between the North Downs and Lake Evendim were littered with the shattered bodies of Men, Elves, and Halflings.

Halflings were novel creatures to Haldir. When he had first espied the diminutive band marching from the west he had thought them children, and expressed furious astonishment that the armies of men had become so desperate that they would send babes to the battlefield.

Gildor had smiled at his ignorance. "Nay, friend. Their size deceives you. They are _Periannath_. Archers from the Shire. They may be little, but they are stout of heart and a stalwart folk." His mien grew grim as he watched the Halflings order their ranks. "Though as peaceful and merry as is their nature, it is nigh as cruel to see them muster here as it would be to see a band of children."

True to Gildor's word, the little archers had valiantly held their lines, their bolts flying true time and again, but they were no match for swords and maces, and as Angmar's armies had drawn closer, they had been forced to withdraw. Unfortunately, even their retreat did not spare them casualties. Haldir watched them now, in the aftermath, tending their wounded and shrouding the bodies of their dead to return them to The Shire. The one called Bucca saw him watching and touched his hand to his brow in an informal salute. Haldir returned the gesture and looked away, uncomfortable at his trespass on another's grief.

Long years had flown since Haldir had last faced a campaign on an open field, but what awaited them on the plains between the North Downs and Lake Evendim he could never have conjured even in the basest depths of his nightmares. Days later, he still shuddered to recall it.

Haldir's destrier, no timid or untried beast, had shied nervously under his weight, resisting Haldir's attempts to urge him forward. Eyes rolling fearfully, he had tossed his head and screeched, backing up on haunches tensed to bolt. On either side, Gildor and Ausir had tried to coerce their own mounts to no avail. When Haldir had raised his head to see what caused the animals to balk so, a deathly chill surged down his spine.

No creature could face this menace without terror: black was the raiment of the Witch-king, and black was his grotesque helm; a fetid miasma issuing from his form had oozed toward them on an ill wind. His mount, more corpse than beast, pulled back its decayed lips to reveal a bit sharp as a blade in a mouth bearing teeth that looked more fit for rending flesh than grinding grains; flanks heaved against its rider's steel-plated greaves, the flayed hide revealing the shining viscera pulsing darkly beneath.

Only Glorfindel, a beacon in incandescent armor, and Eärnur, the captain of Gondor with mortal features twisted in fury, had been able to master their mounts in the face of the Witch-king. Haldir and the others had watched transfixed as Eärnur sounded a battle cry and charged the wraith alone, Glorfindel's voice carrying on the wind as he unleashed a litany of curses regarding the impetuous foolishness of men and followed the Prince toward his folly.

Eärnur's horse, more sage than his rider if not as courageous, veered and fled, and neither crop nor spur could bring him in hand. The Witch-king's laughter had been the dissonant thunder of death and decay; a malevolent roar so cruel in its timbre that Haldir would remember its bleak echo ever after. Asfaloth had stayed the course, and Glorfindel had finished the charge Eärnur failed to complete. Faced with the wrath of the Balrog Slayer, The Black Captain fled, and Glorfindel had refused pursuit, foretelling that his doom was as yet far off, and not by the hand of man would he fall.

With the Witch-king's fate declared, the forces had assayed their losses. Haldir tilted his face again toward the darkening sky, his gaze lingering in the direction of home, and prayed Lothlorien fared better than this kingdom of men.

**Lothlorien, Third Age 1975**

Elemmakil scanned Haldir's latest missive and cursed. Each new note brought grimmer news than the last.

The following morning found him in the Royal chambers with Tathalion, watching Amroth, flanked by his advisors, steeple his fingers against his tightly drawn lips. The Dúnedain strongholds in the North lay in ruins, grotesque creatures ravaged Thranduil's realm, and evil emanations from the Necromancer's lair encroached more dangerously on the Golden Wood with every passing day.

"Our greatest concern is Dol Guldur," Elemmakil stated. "We have seen the Greenwood fall to dark magic, and the Necromancer will not limit his malevolence to that forest's borders. Thranduil cannot contain the evil in his realm, and Haldir's words show that the situation elsewhere has become equally dire."

The King looked to his Marchwardens. "What do you advise?"

"Fortify the Anduin. Double the watch along the western borders," Tathalion replied.

Elemmakil seconded his words with a nod. "Can we not ask Durin and his kin to lend the strength of their axe-men to our cause as well? There was once a great friendship between the folk of Khazad-dûm and the Elves of Eregion. Our peoples are not yet so estranged that we would fail to aid one another against a force which threatens all our people."

Amroth's face twisted in disgust. "We have no allies in the Naugrim. I have gone already to Khazad-dûm and they have no care for anything that passes outside their sequestered caverns." The screech of wood on stone echoed in the chamber as Amroth shoved his chair away from the table and angrily paced the length of the hall. "They care not for the safety of their neighbors, nor for aught than the raping of the rock and the glutting of their troves."

He turned sharply, and the council saw fiery resolve tempering the handsome features of their King.

"Whatever evil approaches, the Golden Wood must meet it alone."

**Khazad-dûm, Third Age, 1980**

The rhythm of the mines was the beat of the dwarven heart, each blow of a hammer falling in time with its wielder's pulse. Deep and deeper they delved, day in and day out, for who could mark the passing of day into night in the adumbral caverns of the earth's womb? They followed the course of the shining rivers in the rock, the true-silver ore that flowed more abundantly with every new layer they excavated.

One dwarf stilled his tool to wipe a begrimed hand across his brow. When had it grown so accursedly warm in these depths? He wondered if they neared a hot spring, or perhaps some rent in the rock that opened deep into the swirling, melted core of the earth.

And whence this light? They had few torches so deep, for their smoke choked the air and dwarves had little need for them in any case, so well-suited were they for their shadowy labors. Yet the rocks ahead seemed to glow as if illumined. He set down his hammer and walked beyond where his fellows toiled, toward the source of the light the others either had not noticed or chose to ignore.

He could not scream when met with two sulphurous eyes flashing fire; he had not the time to draw breath. He heard the crack of a lash and then it was around him, an encircling tongue of flame crushing his ribs and burning his skin. The immense whip-hand jerked once and sent him flying into the unforgiving wall of stone.

Brimstone breath and limbs of living shadow, immured for years beyond memory in a smoldering half-life, had been roused at last by the interminable vibrations of hammer on stone and the tendrils of nefarious magic wafting insidiously from the Necromancer's distant lair. Soon, too soon, veins of mithril bled down the face of the rock, melted by preternatural heat, to mingle with the growing rivers of dwarven blood.

Far above the earthen sepulcher, the ruined realm of Aulë's children, a warden of the northern marches moved silently over familiar paths in the foothills. _Quiet_, she thought. _Too quiet_. She closed her eyes and inclined her head toward the slopes for a long moment, then looked up sharply. Her skin prickled with foreboding when she realized what she heard.

Or, rather, what she did not hear: the hammers of Khazad-dûm, which had for thousands of years marked the passing of the time with their harsh cadence, had gone silent.

On fleet feet, she raced back to the woods to alert the Marchwardens.

**Lothlorien, Third Age 1981**

Orophin leaned down to receive Alquonís's farewell kiss. He had been unusually reluctant to part from her this time. In the last year, the borders had been plagued by violent incursions with astonishing regularity. Though his family resided safely in the shadow of Lothlorien's citadel, Orophin still felt keen disquietude.

Ethuilion sensed his father's unease and sought to lighten his heart. He stepped up grinning and slung his arm around his mother's waist. "Fret not, she will have me to watch over her. Yet I cannot help but wonder that your patrol conveniently coincides with the peak of the harvest. One less admiring of his sire might suggest you simply seek to avoid laboring in the in the rows!"

Orophin chuckled and returned a teasing clout. In truth, he was sorry to miss the reaping. Most years, he joined his family in the vineyard, sometimes even coercing Haldir and Rúmil to lend their brawn, as harvest time brought song and camaraderie as much as it brought long hours of labor.

His gaze roamed the figure of his son. It was only in the pale blue eyes that he saw himself and his line expressed; otherwise, he was the reflection of his mother from the quirk of his smile to the tawny gold of his hair to his long, slim-fingered hands. As a youngling, he had announced with surety that he would follow his father in arms, and under the tutelage of his uncles he had become able with a bow early in his youth. But as training progressed to swordplay and strategy, Ethuilion found that both his aptitude and interest declined, and it was among the flourishing rows of grapes and wild grasses that Orophin's son found his true calling. By the end of his first century, Ethuilion had become well-versed in most every aspect of the vintner's art, and now approaching his millennial year, he was acknowledged as a master.

"I trust you will reserve some of your bounty for your doting father?" Orophin wheedled, presenting a playful moue.

"Aye, as always. I think you are fonder of the fruit than you are of the wine."

He squeezed his son's shoulder. "They are different pleasures equally savored." He glanced outside and saw the changing tenor of the light. "But now I must away."

With a final kiss for his beloveds, he departed for his muster.

Twilight descended, and with it came the fog, a spectre of grim fortune. It was not the same ephemeral mist that commonly hung low along the Anduin's green vales, but something fell and false, a thick shroud concealing unknown malice.

The vanguard marched over the pontoon bridge, boot leather scuffing softly on the wooden planks, and in their wake the warhorses bore over their armed and armored riders, the echoing clop of colossal hooves reverberating from the jackleg crossing that bobbed and lurched in the press of the current. At the rear, a line of swordsmen felt the heft and balance of their weapons as their fingers warily adjusted and readjusted their hold on worn leather grips. Back across the river, the remaining archers of Lorien took to the trees, invisible assassins, and inside the wood, the last of the swordsmen patrolled, cautiously navigating terrain between well-camouflaged spike pits.

Haldir walked the lines briskly at Elemmakil's heels, a tocsin ringing in his head. Something wicked was on the move, some promise of fatal action hanging as heavily in the air as the peculiar haze. The Necromancer pressed the wood mercilessly, and Durin's greed had unleashed an unspeakable evil that brought yet more violence into their midst. Yrch grew bolder by the day, their incursions ever more destructive, and wargs prowled the surrounding land under the sickle moon. A palpable sense of foreboding waxed in the hearts of Lothlorien's elves, and many spoke of abandoning the realm entirely. Some already had. With disaster impending, the Marchwardens mobilized for a counterattack.

As Haldir stepped forward to take his place before his fellow swordsmen, Elemmakil stalled him, his grip tight on Haldir's shoulder.

"A long night awaits. We will find ourselves hard-pressed, and we know not the number of our adversary. The left flank is yours, Haldir. You must be my eyes and my ears. I will not be able to stray far from the vanguard."

While his face remained dispassionate and alert, Haldir was inwardly bolstered by the responsibility bestowed on him and he lowered his head respectfully.

"I am proud to be your second, Captain. I pray my actions tonight prove me worthy of the honor."

Elemmakil chuckled softly, a wry smile curling up beneath ancient, tired eyes, and his hand slid up to cup the back of Haldir's neck.

"It has been long years since I have heard words of humility fall from _your_ lips, my friend. I am not certain modesty suits you any longer."

Haldir colored a bit in spite of himself and he opened his mouth to protest his sincerety, but Elemmakil silenced him with a simple quirk of his brow, something he had been able to do since the earliest days of Haldir's training, and he wondered if he would ever be equal to Elemmakil's wisdom and mastery.

"It is no honor I give you, Haldir. It is your rightful position. You are a leader in your own right, now. There is nothing more I can teach you."

Grey eyes held blue ones in a gaze as strong and clear as adamant, but something fey in Elemmakil's face took Haldir aback. Discomfited, he squinted into the distance, his sharp eyes surveying the dismal landscape. Even as he scanned the Mirkwood tree line, the Marchwarden's hand burned like a brand against his skin.

"If we must pull back, you will head the retreat. They will follow your lead." The Marchwarden's voice was low and steady. "These borders are yours to defend until I cross the river. Is that understood?"

"Aye, Captain."

Elemmakil blinked suddenly and withdrew his hand. "Take your position. We will be ready for them."

He turned crisply on his heel and addressed the other warriors, his voice carrying with ease through the ranks. "We must drive them back. They must not cross the Anduin. We will retreat to the hither banks only at greatest need. Left wing, look to Haldir for your signals. Let the archers do their work first."

He turned one last time to Haldir. "The borders are yours until I return."

Haldir said nothing, only nodded.

On the northern marches, Tathalion stalked between the trees with ill-suppressed frustration. He had positioned his wardens as best he could, but halving his company to double the western line had left him with a skeletal defense, and no clever strategy could compensate for decreased numbers. The worst of the attacks of late had come from Dol Guldur, and his only hope was that this trend would continue.

When he heard the shrill whistle of his scouts, he knew hope had failed.

"Pull back the archers!"

The Marchwarden's voice barely carried over the din, and turning his head toward the sound Haldir could see only the flapping of his red cloak and moonlight glinting distantly off his blade.

Haldir dashed down the line of the left flank echoing the Marchwarden's order and the archers moved without hesitation, the mounted men shielding their withdrawal over the floating bridge. Nearly all their arrows had been spent and the yrch were too near, packs of wargs bounding and snarling behind them. Ranged weapons would do little good now. Better to pull back to the woods, replenish their ammunition and join the others in cover of the boughs.

In the thick of the melee, the swordsmen held the field, if only barely, striking with lightning speed and lethal precision, fending wild blows from their enraged but disordered assailants. Elemmakil dispatched a marauding goblin with a thrust that took his blade clear through the hideous body and quickly turned to shear the head from another with one clean stroke, but the wind was knocked from his lungs as another elf slammed hard into him. Still moving from the momentum of his last stroke, the weight of the other elf forced him off balance and he fell. He tried to roll out of the way but was not quick enough to keep the elf from tripping over his legs as his attacker forced him backward, and he landed with a grunt beside Elemmakil on the ground. Neither he nor the Marchwarden could deflect the blade that went straight through the his heart.

Elemmakil cursed and leaped to his feet, stumbling back to his knees once before regaining his battle stance. With a vicious swipe, he took the murdering troll's sword arm off at the shoulder and the creature fell shrieking. A rumbling roar rose behind him and he barely had time to turn and lash out against the beast that bound toward him. The warg faltered but did not stay down for long. It circled back to charge again, snarling as it bounded on thick-muscled legs, its mouth wide and ropes of saliva hanging from its teeth. He could smell the rank fester of its breath as it charged and aimed his next thrust down the open throat. The creature did not rise again.

At the other end of the line, Haldir's blade was also in constant motion. His movements were efficient and fleet, his assaults as well choreographed as any festival dance. He was aware of what surrounded him on all sides: Algamir behind him; Lithôniel, a young elleth of surpassing agility, off his left shoulder, and Feredir a few paces away on his right.

Out of the corner of his eye, Haldir saw Feredir swinging wildly. He knew the swordsman was exhausted and his form suffered for it. He wished he could tell him to still his mind, to focus on each maneuver and conserve his remaining strength, but he could not let his own focus waver even for an instant, and he doubted any advice he offered would be well received, especially now. Algamir and Lithôniel were holding their own; all he could do was wait for an opening and step closer, offering assistance Feredir was in no position to refuse.

Feredir shot Haldir a quick, questioning look as he came within striking distance of a larger goblin and sent it flying. For once, he found he was indeed grateful to have Haldir at his side, fighting as if he were impervious to physical strain. The goblin rolled back to his feet and advanced again, arcing its sword low. Feredir pivoted just in time to miss a stroke that would have taken his leg off at the knee. Instead, the end of the blade bit deeply into the back of his thigh, and he dropped with a roar of pain. A guttural croak of laughter clamored above him and he saw the orc raise its blade for the homeward thrust through his heart. He silently cursed and closed his eyes, unwilling to watch his deathblow. But the anticipated stroke failed to land. What fell instead was a hot rain of corruption, followed by a masterless sword rattling against his cuirass. He opened his eyes to see his would-be killer topple face first into the muddy ground beside him as Haldir wrenched free his sword, which had gone in through the creature's belly and out through its back. Feredir closed his eyes again, this time in grateful relief.

But his relief did not last. He could feel the blood rushing from the wound on his leg, and he no longer had the strength to move. His heart raced and the sky above him seemed to swirl in dizzying circles. He could not even try to stand. He saw Haldir extend his arm to him and weakly shook his head.

"Leave me. I cannot walk."

Haldir mouth twisted in fury. "Plague take your mulishness! Give me your hand!"

"Be aware! Behind you!" Feredir could not force a sound louder than a reedy whisper, but it was enough. Haldir reeled around and brought his blade down hard on one orc that flew at him, Lithôniel swiftly gutting the next. He turned back to Feredir with narrowed eyes.

"Your hand, Feredir! That is an order!" When his hand came down again, Feredir reluctantly reached for it. He did not even have the strength to offer a decent retort.

Haldir pulled him to his feet and he swayed, horribly nauseated, beads of clammy sweat erupting across his forehead. He looked at Haldir imploringly but could not unclench a jaw clinched in pain to either plead or apologize. When his good knee buckled under him Haldir caught him and slung his limp arm around his shoulders. "I will not have Rúmil suffer for your obstinance," he growled, and gripping him tightly around the waist, he half carried, half dragged, Feredir over the bridge and into the woods. Galion saw their approach and called to them, stepping out of the shadowy eaves to meet them. Once Haldir handed Feredir off to the healer, he vanished back into the fray.

Rúmil had only enough time to spare the briefest glance from his perch down at his beloved as he was carried bleeding from the field before forcing his eyes back to the line of his drawn shaft.

_Do not let him be taken from me_, he silently petitioned, though he did not know who might hear his plea.

He released another arrow and watched with grim satisfaction as it flew straight through his enemy's heart.

"Nimrodel!"

Amroth raced from Caras Galadhon when the first news of the attack reached him. His advisors had tried bodily to stop him, but he would not be stayed. He flew through the woods, thin red weals rising across his cheeks as branches snapped against his face. He followed the stream but no longer heard his lover's song in the trickling waters and his chest grew tight with fear.

He found her at last, beyond the borders of the forests, crouched under the eaves of Fangorn where the mighty guardian Ents swayed ominously. Her eyes wide and terrified, her hair snarled with twigs and dirt. She flinched when he touched her and cried out, so great was her fear. He took her hands gently and soothed her with the songs she loved, and after a time she hearkened to him and stood, although her hands still trembled within his grasp.

"The trees will not let me pass. They are full of rage because their brethren are dying. Death has come to the woods. We knew peace here once, but the Noldor and Sindar make war, and evil follows them. You have brought war to my home, my King."

Beneath the avian treble of her voice was a core of anger, and Amroth's heart seized, so distraught was he to hear her anguish voiced.

_Father, what would you have me do? I should never have been King…that was your path, not mine. I cannot keep the evil from our realm. I cannot even protect the one I love. Forgive my weakness, sire. Forgive me._

He could hear the noise of the battle through the trees and he knew it would only grow louder. He tightened his grip around her hand and captured her watery blue eyes in the steel of his gaze.

"Come with me. We will leave this place. I will take you to the Undying Lands and you shall know no more of strife."

Nimrodel looked around her. The trees were shedding their leaves like tears and they gathered around her feet though it was nowhere near their season to fall. She wept softly to see them. She looked up at Amroth and nodded.

Leading his love by the hand, the last King of Lorien fled from the Golden Wood, and did not look back.

There was no end to the flood of foulness streaming from Dol Guldur. Elemmakil imagined some virulent spawning ground in the blackened forest where yrch crawled fully-formed from some fetid primordial lake. He would have called them an army had they any sense of order or strategy. But they did not; they simply had numbers and an unquenchable lust for violence. The Galadhrim cut down wave after wave but more emerged from the blighted trees, and as he looked around, the bodies of his fallen men cried out silently for him to end the slaughter.

Their numbers had been decimated. They could no longer hold the field. Their only chance for survival was to pull back across the Anduin, close their ranks as tightly as they could around the woods, and pray that Dol Guldur had not provided its throngs with a means to cross the river. The Marchwarden could do little more than order those who still lived to disengage and let the ashen taste of defeat sour in his mouth.

"Fall back, Haldir!" he bellowed, "We cannot hold!"

Haldir nodded and began rounding up what remained of the left flank for the slow and difficult retreat.

"To the trees!"

He heard a cry and saw Lithôniel fall beside him, an arrow protruding from her back. Her arms and legs swam futilely against the ground and then went still. Haldir screamed his fury at her loss to the dark sky, but there was no time to tarry after the dead. He flagged the last of the swordsmen and horses across the bridge before he followed, Elemmakil close behind. By the time they reached Lothlorien's banks most of the swordsmen had already traded their blades for their bows and had faded into the tall trees. When a high-pitched whine met their ears, Haldir and Elemmakil turned as one and saw Lithôniel-still alive, though barely- struggling to raise herself from where she had fallen. The Marchwarden flew back across the bobbing span and heaved his wounded warden over his shoulder like a sack of grain. It would take but a few moments more to return with his burden safely to the other side.

Too late Haldir saw them, a large band materializing from the shrouded darkness farther afield than his own phalanx had stood, rushing headlong toward the banks of the river.

"Captain, behind you!"

He cursed himself for having missed them, but with black skin and drabbed armor they had been sheltered by the night. Now, however, they cast long, misshapen shadows under flaring torches. The flames glowed a cold, sickly green, not ordinary fire but a weapon of the Necromancer's device that would not be extinguished by water alone, for dark magic gave it strength beyond its element. There were far too many yrch for Elemmakil to take alone, but if the torches crossed the river, the threat to the woods was incalculable.

"Cut the ropes!" Elemmakil cried, letting Lithôniel's body slip from his grasp to drop the beast that assailed him from behind.

Haldir dashed for the bridge, sword drawn, unwilling to leave the Marchwarden and Lithôniel behind, but the yrch had already begun their crossing. Those who could not fit across the deck jumped into the water and pulled themselves across using the edges of the planks. A salvo of arrows rained from the trees but for each creature that fell, another stepped up and took its place. They lobbed their own bolts into the canopy and Haldir heard screams behind him as two of the Lorien archers plummeted to the forest floor.

"Cut the ropes!" Elemmakil's furious roar returned.

Haldir felt his stomach clench and tasted hot bile at the back of his throat. He watched another orc fall to Elemmakil's blade and Lithôniel crawling with excruciating effort toward the foot of the bridge, then he pulled his dagger from its sheath, closed his eyes, and cut the ropes.


	19. Chapter 19

Tathalion's red cloak burned on the majestic pyre with the bodies of his fallen men; he had resigned his post. No more would he wield the sword. Heavy was his heart, the weight of guilt a millstone cordoned around his spirit. He felt he had brought his wife's death, the deaths of the wardens of the north marches, and the deaths of other innocent elves, when his failing lines could not stem the tide of evil into the woods he was sworn to protect. That his crippled patrol had never stood a chance against the onslaught did little to assuage his conscience.

He swaddled his daughter on his back and fell into step with the others who could no longer bear the sight of the violated forest. Tathalion and his child departed the Golden Wood, never again to return.

The silver coin was a comfort in his hand. Its cool weight and milled edge soothed him as he rolled it between his fingers, passed the fleshy pad of his thumb over the protruding image of the fountain, like stroking familiar flesh. If he pressed hard enough against the metal, the twinge it produced took his mind away for just a moment's span from the grief welling within him.

_So many of Lorien's leaves have fallen._

Dead foliage, burned to fuscous filigree at the edges and brittle as parchment, crackled beneath slow footfalls. Someone approached and stood by in silence, but he did not acknowledge them nor move from where he knelt, weariness suffusing the very marrow of his bones. He wished to be alone, to simmer with his sorrow and wrap his mind around his loss, but that, he knew, was an indulgence. The men who remained needed him.

_You will steel yourself because you have obligations greater than your own pain._

To lead was to risk, and often, it was to lose. He knew that well, perhaps better than any who still stood today. Had the retreat been called sooner, perhaps more would have been saved. Had they poached fewer men from Tathalion's patrol, perhaps the yrch would not have broken through the northern marches. Had his decisions been the right ones, or would another choice have spared lives? Wisdom and experience did not make one infallible. One could have both of these things and still fail.

The smell of violence and decay lingered in the woods, despite the elves' efforts to succor both the trees and their kin. There was much to rebuild, and more yet that was beyond rebuilding. The healers tended to wounded flesh, but how to salve the wounds that lie beneath the skin? How to give hope to the paltry band of forest-dwellers who remained that Lorien would again flourish, would again be made inviolable?

_These borders are yours until I return._

_But you did not return_, he thought bitterly.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder, a touch that remained reserved, perhaps even formal, while striving to give comfort. Looking over his shoulder, the healer's face regarded him carefully, benign and sympathetic. After a moment, the dark-haired elf said simply, "It is time."

Slowly, as if he could now feel all the many years of his life burdening his body, he brought himself to standing and took a few careful breaths in and out, the pang of comprehension spearing him as inexorably as an arrow through the heart.

_These borders now are mine._

With slow and measured steps, his back straight, his expression muted, Haldir approached the unlit pyre.

He pressed the silver coin into Elemmakil's palm and closed the Marchwarden's cold fingers around it.

When the blade had fallen, there had been pain, indescribable, soul-searing pain, as if every nerve in his body had been set alight. He screamed, but his voice only evaporated in the impenetrable silence.

Fire receded as his blood spilled and ebbed, supplanted by creeping cold, his flesh and bones becoming as the blank, frozen floes of the Helcaraxë, and with the cold came light, pure and white and blinding. He tried to cover his eyes, but he had no sense of his body, as if his limbs had simply dissolved, had become both leaden and weightless all at once. The glare surrounded him. Engulfed him. Brighter and brighter it blazed, an incandescence beyond all earthly intensity, until it began to consume itself, an umbra impenetrable and profound spreading slowly and inexorably from a pinpoint of shadow until even the glimmering edges of his vision were eclipsed.

Time passed in its own immeasurable fashion. Perhaps hours, perhaps years, he could not say. Time had no meaning in this realm. He knew only that the blackness receded by degree, shapes and figures gradually pronouncing themselves from the shadows in muted tones. He tried to stand, but still his body was beyond him. Only the memory of muscle and movement remained, although he felt at certain moments a strange sense of warm hands restraining him, soothing him.

A voice came, not the resonant hum of words formed with teeth and tongue, but a remembrance of sound, a living echo, the presence of another's thoughts in his mind.

_Sleep now, seron vell._

He ceased his struggles then, lulled by that familiar voice that seeped like mist and glinted like refracted light. Comforted, he surrendered to the nothingness, the disembodiment. He could no longer recall pain or torment, no longer minded the strange absence of form and weight. He was blanketed in quietude and strange peace. He felt it then, just barely… at the periphery of his mind…the warm press of lips, almost like the memory of a kiss, distant yet real.

When, in time, more of the strange fog lifted and more ephemeral sight returned to him, Elemmakil saw that he was not alone, had never been alone, and he reached with insubstantial arms to the one who had long kept vigil at his side.

_My heart…my love…at last you are returned to me._

Notes: Many thanks to larianelensar and lady_elina for their help and patience in helping me work through this chapter. Their input was invaluable, and Elina has truly gone above and beyond the call of duty in helping me realize this chapter. Many thanks, also, to the readers who have followed Haldir's tale thus far and whose kind feedback has truly warmed my heart and made this endeavor even more enjoyable than I imagined it would be. I am profoundly touched by the time and thought you have given my little offering, and hope you will continue to enjoy Haldir's story as it unfolds. Namarië. -Kenaz


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